Enid (Birch) and Rebecca (Johansson) are a couple of high school mall rats who don't see the point in enthusing about teenage pursuits.

Fellow pupils are clueless, feckless nobodies best avoided while adults are either weak (Enid's dad) or just plain weird (record collecting Seymour [Buscemi]).

However, after the pair set up Seymour on a bogus blind date, Enid feels guilty and strikes up a conversation with him at his second-hand record stall.

Attracted to his otherworldliness, she persuades Rebecca to accompany her to a party at his house - but there's no dancing...just a gang of record buffs milling around with beers in their hands.

It's not the night of their lives but the off-kilter Enid (who looks a little like a pocket Nana Mouskouri) pursues her friendship with the kindly Seymour.

She is also attending summer school with the delightfully off-beam Roberta (Illeana Douglas), who encourages her class with every modern art cliché in the book.

Meanwhile, home-making Rebecca looks like weakening her anti-establishment stand and the home-maker inside of her wants to get an apartment with Enid.

However, Enid's world is dealt a blow when a match-making attempt for Seymour ends up trumps when he hits it off with the brassy Dana (Stacey Travis).

Birch and Johansson charm as the "include me out" couple of misfits with Birch touchingly playing the awkward adolescent.

The dialogue sparkles with neat one-liners, there's comment on America's material-obsessed society and the cast boasts a rich seam of misfits (check out wheelchair-bound trivia buff).

Zwigoff has succeeded in making a film that keeps its head above water...despite coming out in the cinema at the same time as the all-conquering Harry Potter.

Tim Evans