there’s something gently devastating about the effect scott pilgrim vs the world (the film) had on young millennial hearts.

last weekend I ran into a girl I went to secondary school with - both back visiting home like ghosts - and somehow ended up back at hers. by the time I’d found myself back in her flat, I already knew nothing was going to happen. we were suddenly talking about scott pilgrim. not in a 'remember that movie?' way. more like two people confessing to having grown up under it's ghostly instruction. the pastel dyed hair. the awkward niceness. the slightly sad boy at the centre of it all.

i hadn't thought about that film in years. hadn't needed to. because it never left. it quietly rewired the circuitry of every awkward, curious, mildly depressed young person. i've been on dates, stood in smoking areas, where scott pilgrim crept into the conversation like a third person in the room. we're still playing out some haunted half-version of that film. we didn’t even have to name it. it had named us.