Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2001

The Contenders:

A Beautiful Mind (winner)
Ghost World
In the Bedroom
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Shrek

Daria: The Movie

Film: Ghost World
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on laptop.

There are movies that we come to at the wrong point in our lives. I think Ghost World is that kind of movie for me. I thought I had seen this. It turns out I’d seen a couple of scenes from it without watching the whole thing. I liked those clips. Now, watching the entire thing at once, I find this to be a film that is less than the sum of its parts. I also think that if I had seen this 15 years ago when I was 15 years younger, I’d have related to it a lot more. I think I’m just too old for the damn thing.

Ghost World is a disaffected teen movie, a film where the characters see themselves as somehow set apart from their peers by virtue of knowing more or by not being absorbed by pop culture. In reality, it’s the story of one young woman who is merely self-obsessed in a way different than everyone around her. She’s convinced that she is special and different, and in truth, she’s really just different.