Ghost World

Ghost World is endearingly odd, a dryly funny satire of the awkward phase after high school and before adulthood. I greatly enjoyed it; my partner strongly disliked it, finding it awkwardand unfunny. It's certainly not a movie for everyone, and I suspect you'll know in the first half hour whether it's for you.

The movie is about Enid and Becky, two high school friends who seem to own the anti-cool clique and have no real plans for life after graduation other than to get an apartment together - though Enid has not officially graduated and needs to take a remedial art class in the summer in order to finish out her credits. (There's more than a passing resemblance to the Daria and Jane relationship, for those who remember that show.) Becky seems to be handling the transition better: she gets a job and picks out an apartment. Enid instead seems insistent on taking an apathetic, hipster approach towards everything and everyone, deeming it all so lame as to be unworthy of effort, other than her affection for Seymour, a dorky record collector many, many years her senior who has few friends and even fewer romantic prospects.

Without ever being in your face politically, Ghost World has great social commentary on art, relationships, and consumer culture. It's a weird movie, and you'll either love it or roll your eyes at it, but I hope it's the former.