September introduces another school year, and another chance to debut a new self.
This month’s films revolve around coming-of-age, and characters who are straining to reveal another side of themselves or resist roles foisted upon them. In either case, they emerge from their chrysalises with the chance to keep trying.
‘Ghost World’ (2001)
Stream it on PlutoTV.
When Enid (Thora Birch) graduates high school, there is little ahead of her. Her every word is laced with the acidic teenage brew of apathy and cynicism, but how else should she be? All around her is ugly American sprawl populated by Neanderthals obsessed with “sports and guitar” and the so-called losers and creeps she at once mocks and identifies with.
One of those outcasts is Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a middle-age loner whom Enid pranks but then befriends, perhaps because he actually cares about things, even if they’re dusty 45 vinyls. He becomes an antidote to Enid’s all-consuming irony, but their connection in Terry Zwigoff’s movie, based on Daniel Clowes’s graphic novel, makes way for a quietly devastating assessment of the alienating choices a teenager actually faces.
There is either the conformity she sees her best friend, Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), drifting into, or the isolation inhabited by Seymour, who finds solace in niche novelties. This dismaying insight makes for a work of sneaky genre subversion. Enid’s brighter future isn’t so much about getting out of her small town — life’s prospects are just as bland anywhere else — as it is about managing the desires to be whisked away to some other ghost world.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post Five Free Movies to Stream Now appeared first on New York Times.
