I personally loved this film and thought it was one of the most well written films I've seen in the last couple years. I think some of your criticisms are based on misconceptions in the film and I will adress them below.

>1) The beginning of the movie
>is pretty weak. The
>first 20 minutes' worth of
>dialogue and scenarios just seemed
>so phony. After that
>it got better for awhile.

Maybe because I'm from the San Fernando Valley (where this was filmed) it affected me differently, but I saw a lot of the things that Enid and Rebecca were observing as very real. It was almost as if Zigwoff was making me realize how ridiculous everyday life really was.

The purpose of the first 20 minutes of the film was to set up that Enid and Rebecca basically go around critcizing people and ignoring themselves. Even if you couldn't relate to it, I'm suprised that you didn't at least find there observations funny.


>2) I hated how Rebecca was
>marginalized and all but absent
>for about a 20-minute stretch
>of the movie 2/3 of
>the way through. During
>the whole second half, she
>becomes progressively less and less
>of a character (I realize
>you could say "That's the
>point," but I think it
>would be a much better
>film if Rebecca were allowed
>to join in the relatively
>complex characterizations that Enid and
>Seymour benefited from).


Keep in mind the film is told from Enid's point of view. So, we are to understand that as Rebecca joins "mainstream" culture she drifts out of Enid's life. This is why we don't see her for the "20 minute stretch" you described. The posters for this film showing Enid and Rebecca are misleading as his film is clearly about Enid and Seymour, Rebecca is more of a supporting character and thus not given the complex characterization that a lead character would be afforded.

>3) Rebecca and Enid made amends
>too easily.

The film sets up that Enid and Rebecca have been best friends for a very long time (remember the scene where there going through the photo album). Imagine if you had a fight with your best friend of many years and you didn't talk to each other for a while. After a couple of weeks you would see this as one bullshit fight in a long relationship, and because you knew each other so well it would be easy for you to get back together. I've seen this situation with a lot of my friends and I didn't think much of it during the actual fim.

>4) The characters were too archetypical
>for my tastes. This
>applies to Rebecca, Enid's father,
>Josh, "Doug" (the nunchuku guy),
>and the art teacher.
>Basically, the only two fully-realized
>characters were Enid and Seymour.
> It allowed for too
>many easy jokes (and there
>were A LOT of easy
>jokes, especially with the art
>teacher) and not nearly as
>rich an experience as it
>could have been.

The film was meant to (in part) show the world from Enid's point of view. Enid viewed everyone except for her and Seymour (and Rebecca) as basically one dimensional. Part of the point of the film is how she takes these EASY jokes and pot shots at them. This accounts for the shallowness of the characters.

>5) The movie seems often confused
>about where it stands ideologically.
> The art class scenes
>in particular bothered me.
>At the beginning, it's a
>scathing (albeit very predictable, as
>suggested above) satire/parody of "mainstream
>culture" and "art,"

Keep in mind this film was based on a comic book and co-written by a comic book artist. Think about what a comic book artist was saying with that scene. Enid draws these pieces (which were actually Clowes artwork) that are looked at by the art teacher as "cartoons" and yet the tampon in a tea cup reaches "that higher level of art." Clowes was (admittedly very obviously) saying "how are these tampons in teacups art and my shit not?" That was basically a big fuck you to all the art critics who view comic books as lesser.


>and yet
>somehow it seems we're supposed
>to sympathize with Enid's "triumph"
>in art class when she
>submits her Coon's Chicken poster
>as a found object piece.
> Sure, you could say
>that ultimately, her piece is
>rejected and taken down from
>the art show, and that
>she loses her chance at
>going to art college as
>a result, but we're obviously
>supposed to go along for
>the ride and sympathize with
>Enid's acceptance when everything else
>in the film to that
>point had suggested that the
>art teacher was such an
>idiot that we shouldn't really
>care about her phony "validation."

Okay, so let's establish that this film is about Enid who talks shit about everyone in the world while ignoring herself and how her negative attitude comes back to bite her in the ass. The film is never arguing that Enid's Coon picture is art. Instead she finds this piece in Seymour's room and thinks her idiotic art teacher will love it. She turns it in as a joke. She PLAYS her art teacher. Evenutally, when the whole thing with the newspaper article comes around it bites her in the ass as the art school scholarship could have been her way out. We are never supposed to sympathize with her coon picture as art. Instead we are to view it as a joke she is playing on the art teacher


-Ryan

"Police don't sweep to get the dust out
They want your name in the system,
I need to mention the death penalty is
legal lynchin
People listen, they got teenagers up in
the line up
To fill the new facility they built,
they need the crime up
Please, the war on drugs is really war
on the youth
War on the people
War on the truth
The violent crimes rise,
the silent dies as sirens cry through
the night
People fight for what's left and not
what's right"

-Talib Kweli