I liked this movie very much, not so much while watching (we were expecting more of a comedy), but upon reflecting that night. To me, "Ghost World," the title, refers to a world that's no longer alive to the main characters, especially Enid, though also to a lesser degree Rebecca and Seymour. Enid's life is no in longer in the world in which she has grown up, certainly not with her father, and not being carried along with the mainstream thoughtlessness and a lock-step life (e.g., just going to college cause everyone else does). But neither is the plan she long shared with Rebecca -- working in a whatever-type job and living independently -- working out. The idea of moving in with Seymour and becoming his girlfriend was borne of a sentiment of desperation that she almost immediately recognized as such.
The movie is about growing up and moving on from ghosts and into life, and how hard, but necessary that is. I wasn't thrilled with the Norman/Bus story line, but I understand it as a metaphor. It seems as though there is no bus-line out of town, but in fact there is. Enid "doesn't know what (she's) talking about" when she repeats what everyone knows and what is written on the bench about this line not being in service. The one person she imagines will always be there, crazy Norman waiting for the bus, in fact, leaves on that bus. She sees both that no one is always there as you might want them to be, and also that it is possible to leave. Having attempted but not surrendered to the unsatisfactory options in her world (she won't toe the company line at her movie-theater job, won't accept life with a totally out-of-touch father and fiancée, and won't become Seymour's girlfriend/wife), she realizes after a great deal of probably necessary pain that if she is to join the world of the living, she, too, must leave what has become her Ghost World.
The movie is about growing up and moving on from ghosts and into life, and how hard, but necessary that is. I wasn't thrilled with the Norman/Bus story line, but I understand it as a metaphor. It seems as though there is no bus-line out of town, but in fact there is. Enid "doesn't know what (she's) talking about" when she repeats what everyone knows and what is written on the bench about this line not being in service. The one person she imagines will always be there, crazy Norman waiting for the bus, in fact, leaves on that bus. She sees both that no one is always there as you might want them to be, and also that it is possible to leave. Having attempted but not surrendered to the unsatisfactory options in her world (she won't toe the company line at her movie-theater job, won't accept life with a totally out-of-touch father and fiancée, and won't become Seymour's girlfriend/wife), she realizes after a great deal of probably necessary pain that if she is to join the world of the living, she, too, must leave what has become her Ghost World.