“Ghost World at 20” – an essay in The Guardian about one of the best movies I’ve seen. The hard truth that confronts Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), two recent high-school graduates, is that in life there are “two basic options: conform or not conform”:
It’s heartbreaking for Enid to learn, over the course of the film, that she and Rebecca don’t share the same answer to that question. When they meet Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a middle-aged record collector with a crummy shared apartment and no romantic prospects, it’s like a visitation from the Ghost of Nonconformist Future. Rebecca recoils in horror. Enid is intrigued.
The movie then details the costs of not conforming. Squalor. Perpetual uncertainty. Ostracism. Alienation. The death of friendship.
Yup, that’s how it is.
I think this is one of the wisest movies, one that understands this basic human predicament.
Watching this story unfold, I was reminded of two others:
(1) Marilynn Robinson’s celebrated novel, Housekeeping (1980), in which two orphaned sisters are cared for by an eccentric aunt. I’ve not read it, but it seems all my friends have, and so I’ve absorbed it through osmosis (no doubt inadequately). Behold this trailer of the 1987 cinematic version.
(2) The Night of the Hunter (1955), in which an orphaned brother and sister take refuge with a not-quite-elderly spinster (Lillian Gish). At night, the spinster sits on her porch, singing hymns, grasping a shotgun, guarding the children against their pursuer in one of the all-time greatest scenes.
In Manny & Lo, it’s the children – two sisters – who wield the shotgun. They use it to force an eccentric spinster to fulfill their mother’s role.
Sixteen-year-old Laurel (Aleksa Palladino) is the instigator, the more desperate sister. She’s pregnant.
Eleven-year-old Amanda (Scarlett Johansson) is the movie’s narrator. She’s willing to go along with whatever Laurel does, apparently for the sheer pleasure of experiencing and contemplating it.
The sisters have illegally removed themselves from the fostering system and are out on the lam. The movie begins with them driving around in an old station wagon. (No, it’s nothing like Thelma & Louise.) They sleep in forests and model homes. They prefer not to stay long in the same place. As Laurel’s baby grows inside her, however, they realize they must choose a different survival tactic.
After Laurel decides not to have an abortion, she and Amanda kidnap Elaine (Mary Kay Place), a knowledgeable maternity shop clerk. They conscript Elaine to serve as a midwife for Laurel. They chain Elaine’s ankles together and imprison her in an empty vacation house in the woods.
Most of the movie takes place while Elaine and the two girls await the birth of the child in this hideout.
At first, Elaine is none too pleased, as shown in this still photo. (No, she hasn’t been decapitated. The girls are force-feeding cereal to her: she’s been hunger-striking.)
“I do not give in to criminals,” Elaine says.
She reiterates: “I don’t care what type of drugs are involved, or so-called religious rituals, or what have you. I do not give in to criminals.”
There has been no suggestion of drug use or religious ritual. This is just how Elaine talks: with unceasing, severe moralism.
Later, however, she cooks casseroles for the household.
Again, she underscores that she is not giving in to criminals. “I believe kidnap victims have just as much right to a balanced meal as anyone else,” she tells Laurel and Amanda. “And, if I am not mistaken, the same holds true for innocent babies.”
She adds: “If you two benefit in the process, well, that can’t be helped.”
In deed, then, if not in word, Elaine exhibits increasing sympathy toward her captors. (Does it count as Stockholm syndrome if she was rather cuckoo to begin with?)
Over all this hang various possibilities that the trio will be caught:
The owner of the vacation house might show up.
The neighbors might show up. (Rather foolishly, or perhaps daringly, Amanda has made friends with a little boy she has found in the woods.)
The fostering agency might show up.
Elaine’s friends and relations might show up.
What in fact happens is perhaps the most interesting thing that could happen. It leads the three women to understand their position in the world, and what they mean to each other.
At certain points, I thought I knew how the movie would turn out, and I was wrong (at least about the details). What does occur, and how, is immensely satisfying – and amusing. And a little sad.
IU South Bend’s new school term is due to begin next week. I’ll welcome this change. I’ve gotten tired of staying at home.
Today I was in job training at IU for nearly seven hours, and it felt downright refreshing (though I’d dreaded it).
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Saturday morning
The high temperature today is 15°F. That is, 15 on the plus-side. It no longer feels unbearable to leave the house.
Saturday afternoon
Having left the house for two minutes, I retract what I previously wrote. The temperature is lousy. Also, I’m perturbed by how very long and sharp the icicles are that dangle, like Swords of Damocles, from the awnings of our housing complex.
Karin has come home from her job (she works half of each Saturday) and gone straight to bed, sick.
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Saturday evening
Karin slept all afternoon. Then she felt slightly better. We performed some errands and now Karin is doing the bookkeeping for our church (she’s the treasurer). I’m watching an NFL playoff game.
The kitties are little sweeties. Jasper lets me pick him up and carry him around the house. He sits on my lap while I watch the game.
Are you very manly? I ask Jasper.
Chirp, chirp, he says.
Earlier this afternoon, Ziva lay in bed with me. She insisted that I hold up my left forearm, and then she burrowed herself into its crook.
The kitties have found my stash of groomsman neckties. They drag them around the house.
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Sunday, early hours
I’m reading Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fischer. Karin continues to work on the bookkeeping. For background noise, she plays a TV show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., whose characters are from the “universe” of the Marvel comics.
Which universe is that? I ask. Ironman’s universe?
So many November birthdays:
Five days ago, Scarlett Johansson turned thirty, and so did my brother, David. …
Yesterday at 6:00am Edoarda called Stephen to wish him a happy birthday. …
A few minutes later, Edoarda’s parents called from Nicaragua. “Muchas gracias, muchas gracias,” Stephen kept on saying.
Oh yeah, Happy Thanksgiving.
Our house is vermin-free. For longer than a week, the traps have remained unoccupied.
People have been asking about my new job at the high school. How long have you been doing it? About a month and a half, but it seems like forever. What’s the craaaazzzziest thing you’ve seen?
Nothing too crazy. I saw a kid get arrested. The school’s cop pulled him into a room and yelled at him for a long time. Then they went into the principal’s office. When they came out, the cop said something else to the kid, and the kid tried to run, and the cop pancaked him and put cuffs on him. The cop was built like an NFL lineman. The kid was scrawny.
A couple of nights ago, I saw the cop on TV, telling how he cultivates relationships with the kids. How well do YOU get along with the kids?
A few times each week, I buy donuts from them, which they’re grateful for. Otherwise, I barely talk to them. I hardly even notice when they make out with one another in the halls. I work more closely with the teachers, ordering supplies and making photocopies. I could tell you a lot about the copy machines. Whenever there’s a paper jam, a teacher emails me and I scurry off to see if the copier is broken enough for me to fill out a repair request form. Our building is big; some of the copiers are, like, two blocks away from one another. There are teachers who’ve been around for forty years who don’t know where the backup copiers are.
I could go on and on about the copiers. Do you enjoy this job? Very much. The teachers have vivid personalities: every day is like watching a sitcom. Also, I get free coffee, courtesy of the Social Studies dept chair.
