MovieChat Forums > Ghost World (2001) Discussion > ...What the hell kind of an ending was t...

...What the hell kind of an ending was that?

posted 10 years ago by nivrehs
46 replies | jump to latest

Don't worry, I'm not about to rain on your parade with, "I didn't like this movie" or "it was so boring and pointless." I laughed at a lot of the awkward and quirky humor throughout. But right around the point when Seymour and Enid slept together, it just all went downhill. Not in a crazy *beep* type of way, but just sort of in a dragging, over-sulking, stalemate, dare I say boring way. I mean, what the hell happened?

Yeah, of course Rebecca wouldn't take her back because of her unreliable behavior, absence, and all-talk nature ("I'll get a job [and keep it]"). Who would want to remain friends with someone so negative and cynical who spends all their free time with their "other" friend anyway?

But how does that ending even count as an ending? A bus that hasn't come over the span of the entire film (which to my understanding was several weeks) just suddenly shows up? What? And then Enid just sits there and it shows up immediately afterwards? That was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. A really cheap way to end an otherwise really original film. It's as if the screenwriters (or the original author in this case) just decided that they were bored with this script and gave it a quick ending.

I know, I know. You're gonna tell me I "don't get it." Right?

[–] haggar 10 years ago

I have to agree with you. Even more, I have the sensation that the authors completely lost any interest, or even any basic understanding of the direction of the movie. They threw something entirely bland and predictable (like in most movies about growing up teens, "she leaves town").

It seems as if the authors became total imbeciles when they created the ending. A shame, since the movie was great up to the point when Enid visits Seymour. After that it was all bland and predictable: she gets drunk, sleeps with him, does NOT move in with him (come on, you could see that MILES away!) etc. etc. etc.

A much better ending wold have been with no ending at all. Now that would be "edgy" and "avant-garde". I could bet a 1000 EUR that you'd find a dozen IMDB patrons saying that "no, this ending is perfect, it makes the movie so much deeper".

[–] tanster-1 10 years ago

haggar, congratulations on being the only one so far to provide a good discussion with hostile and pretentious ramblings.

[–] lara-winfield 10 years ago

You're right about the bus. But it started working again, for some reason... It shows that the bus is working again because the old man got on the bus some time before her. About the ending, she just leaves because that was her dream as a kid. One time she was talking to Seymour and she says that she used to dream of just leaving, without telling anyone, and so she did.
I hope to have helped somehow

[–] janet-conant 10 years ago

Supergrunger10 you really understand the ending thanks for summing it all up for me. I liked that ending.

[–] 10 years ago

[deleted]

[–] merlinsbearddd 10 years ago

I agree with the OP on pretty much everything except the bus part; I still liked that because Enid had mentioned that was a dream of hers, to just disappear without telling anyone. It gave an open end to the movie, which I liked.

I haven't read the book in a long time so I can't remember exactly how everything went (I also read it before watching the movie), but I know Rebecca ended up going to college and I'm pretty sure she slept with Josh. I think in the movie, they replaced that with Enid sleeping with Seymour, and I didn't like that. I also didn't like how the movie kind of stopped being about Enid and Rebecca's friendship and focused more on Enid and Seymour. In the book, it was just the two of them and their conflicts and resolutions. Enid sleeping with Seymour (and subsequently destroying every aspect of his life) just kinda ruined it for me.

PURPLE, YOUR AURA'S PURPLE!

[–] TwoThousandOneMark 10 years ago

I was alright with the ending. Didn't love it, yet it works.

I think if they'd hit that ending before Enid had reconciled with everyone a bit beforehand during the final act, it'd have been more effective. Much more depressing & sad, yet certainly more symbolic.

As it is, I can only wonder how far she'd really get- as a 19yr old in Southern California with nothing to her name except whatever's in that small case- she had no job for money, let alone a resume for futures.

I bet she sees the grass isn't always greener & returns home in a few months.

[–] MoviemanCin 9 years ago

It was an excellent ending IMHO. It was realistic. Life is not always tied up in a neat bow like in the typical Hollywood movie.

Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, or doesn't.

[–] gallae 9 years ago

Apart from the fact that she does the same thing at the end of the comic, and telegraphs it in both comic and film by saying that she'd like to get on some random bus and go off and become someone different, it's also (in various forms) a TV Trope, see http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PutOnABus. Of course it's unlikely to mean that in the film, because it's the last scene.

Laura Ess

[–] PsychoDingo 8 years ago

It's a great ending.

She fulfilled her fantasy of leaving without telling anyone, and starting a new life somewhere else.

Surreal Cinema: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls006574276/

[–] bsharporflat 8 years ago

It's a great ending.

She fulfilled her fantasy of leaving without telling anyone, and starting a new life somewhere else.

This interpretation is allowed, if you prefer it. Many of us like Enid and we don't want her to die. We want her to find happiness.

But sadly, that ending doesn't make a lot of sense, within the context of the movie. If the writers really intended that meaning, Enid would buy a Greyhound bus ticket to some far away place where everything (weather, culture, people etc.) was different. The bus, (if it was real, which it isn't), was a local commuter bus, which doesn't go any further than other nearby California towns. Everything would be just the same for Enid ten miles away as it is in her hometown.

But the bus isn't real. And the imaginary bus was introduced into the story by a deranged old man, close to death. There is nothing to suggest this bus is intended as a metaphor for a brand new, exciting life for Enid. Just the opposite. Where the old guy went, that's where Enid is going. The old guy was written as part of the story for a reason. He had no hope for the future either.

[–] Bloody_Bunny 8 years ago

Exactly. Thank you.