Are you an Enid or a Becky?

That’s the question “Ghost World” wants you to ask. It has two very cool-in-different-ways main characters, both of which are great choices for who to be. But are you the type to draw cartoons of Satanists sitting across from you in a diner and dye your hair green to match a shirt? Or are you the more responsible type, the one guys always look at, and are you getting ready to move into your own kitschy apartment for the first time? You could be both, but that’s less fun.

“Ghost World” started as a graphic novel, and I personally think the transition to the screen was great. Thora Birch plays artistic, moody Enid perfectly, so that we love her, admire her, and are frustrated by her all at once. Scarlett Johannson got her big break with this movie, unless you count “The Horse Whisperer.” She plays Becky, Enid’s best friend who yearns secretly for the mainstream she spent all of high school actively shunning. She is certainly the lower-maintenance of the two friends, preferring to stay in and watch movies while Enid pursues the strange record-collector Seymour (Steve Buscemi) she meets through a newspaper ad.

There is something deeply sad about “Ghost World,” which is surprising knowing that it’s just a story about what a couple of best friends do the summer after they graduate high school. Something about it, though, be it the fluidity of the banter between characters, the clothes the girls wear that you know you own, or the painful honesty of watching Enid and Becky grow apart, breaks my heart. Everything about that first weird summer after graduation is real (first jobs, adventurous hook-ups, boredom, moving out), no matter which character you most relate to.

(2001)