Sometimes, coming of age feels like an endless stroll around a cul-de-sac. The analogy is all the more terrifying when actualized. All June long at The Cinematropolis, we will look at coming of age stories that have shaped the world we live in today.
Last year, Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird struck a tremendous chord among American Millennials and Gen Xers alike. Tapping into a fresh zeitgeist, the film resonated with its imagery of youthful abandon and parental frustration. Despite its realist depiction of angst and familiar tension, Lady Bird maintains an optimistic trajectory. Gerwig’s protagonist is often confused, but her aspiration to attend a notable art school remains clear throughout the tale. Nearly two decades prior, Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World explored growing up at the turn of the century and in the absence of aspiration.
Ghost World observes Enid (Thora Birch), a recent high school graduate shackled to suburbia. Aimless in her quest to stave boredom, the teen touts a demeanor akin to Daria. Though much of the film is composed of Enid’s and her best friend Rebecca’s (Scarlett Johansson) humorous and cynical escapades, the conclusion of such outings does less and less to elicit laughter. Rather, these instances begin to reveal a suffocating fear of stagnation within Enid as she struggles to escape a fate of boredom.
The film’s opening moments do not hesitate to establish Enid’s ostracization. The opening sequence finds her neighbors idling within their homes as she dances violently to Gumnaam in her graduation gown. Another instance finds Enid and Rebecca musing at the homogenization of pop culture and the façade of antiquity; the pair chuckle as hip-hop blares through the jukebox of a 50’s diner. The enjoyment Enid pulls from the ventures, however, yields little reward. Her entertainment is a garden infested by cynicism and melancholy.
In her defense, Enid is hardly given an avenue of enthusiasm. In two early scenes, she scoffs at the prospect of college as her male colleagues set their sights on a “practical” degree in business administration. Forced into a summer art class, even Enid’s aesthetically-similar instructor fails to inspire her in a meaningful way. Compelled by a curmudgeon faithfully waiting at a deactivated bus stop, she uncovers a parallel to her own life’s momentum. Continuing to sift through the deflating pitfalls of her setting, Enid can only tune out.
When an encounter evokes a sincere reaction out of Enid, the shift in her complexion is seismic. At her graduation reception, she contemplates the prejudice of reality as she watches Dennis, a fellow outcast, wade through a mass of reveling youth. While watching a monotonous and self-depreciative comedian, Enid is struck by his apparent success through the mundanity of life. After baiting a 40-something-year-old loner, Seymour (Steve Buscemi), by responding to a missed connections ad, Enid buys a blues record from the lost lover out of pity. Later and unsatisfied with her countless cassette tapes, Enid plays the aforementioned album and is mesmerized by Skip James’ “Devil Got My Woman.” Already fascinated by the awkward men, “creeps” as she finds them, the teen is filled with sense of purpose and resolves to help Seymour find companionship. Unfortunately, this endeavor proves to be a vain attempt to mitigate her own internal challenges.
Growing closer to Seymour, Enid comes around to the notion of traditional growth. Her musical tastes are cultivated and she finally comes around to the prospect of getting a job. However, Enid’s brief growth spurt is rife with hurdles. Her own outspoken nihilism sabotages her momentary stint at a movie theater. Subsequently, Enid hosts a garage sale in order to move out of her father’s apartment, but her dependence on her novelties prevent her from committing to a sale. Though she can mimic the necessary motions, her execution is inept.
The growing schism between Enid and Rebecca illuminates the former’s distance from society as a whole and her blossoming transience. Though Rebecca might parley off of Enid’s dark humor, the act fizzles as she can only commit to Enid’s behavior in jest. Furthermore, where Rebecca finds strength in the notion of her own apartment, Enid can only display the semblance of enthusiasm when discussing her experiment with Seymour. The tandem’s inadvertent battle boils over, as Enid admits Rebecca’s apartment hunt is “seventh-grade fantasy.” Her disinterest in the average and common results in the bombastic end to her longest-standing friendship. With an abrupt “fuck you,” her resolve to drift away is solidified.
Enid’s alienated wings are stitched on in the film’s climax, her ascent catalyzed by the breakdown of her fleeting ambitions. After being nominated for an out-of-state art scholarship, the notion is dashed as her gallery submission fostering racist connotations (a landmark of her disconnect) is ordered to be taken down, her post-high school dreams eviscerated in the same breath. After Seymour’s aforementioned ad unexpectedly yields a result, Enid is unable to accept the repercussions of her own success. She sleeps with Seymour out of desperation, spurring him to end his recent relationship and become hospitalized following a short-lived brawl in a convenient store. Desolation in her wake, Enid accepts her only out is escape.
Finding solace in the “bus that never comes,” Enid identifies her vessel for departure. Though the butt of several jokes throughout the film, Enid acknowledges the old man’s anticipation of his own Godot as the only “reliable” and consistent facet of her life. Burning through the idea of an apartment, a job, and further education, the teen accepts the unknown as the only applicable future for her. Eventually, the spectral bus materializes, ferrying her to a destination far removed from her present predicament. Be it a metaphor for suicide or a fantastical mulligan, Enid’s “growth” is confirmed with her removal.
A salient feature growing more topical with age, Ghost World is the culmination of youth’s supposed decay. However, Zwigoff is careful to consider his protagonist cursed rather than lazy. Throughout the bombardment of brands and brief connection to culture, the director finds it peculiar to expect some kind of self-propelled motivation within an adolescent. Enid is a child of the 21st-century wasteland, her peers operating off of expectation rather than enthusiasm. Ghost World posits through growth one may encounter oscillation, and just beyond it, oblivion.
