Essentials: Clerks

Year: 1994
Genre: Workplace Comedy
Directed: Kevin Smith
Stars: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Lisa Spoonauer, Jason Mewes, Scott Moser, Kevin Smith
Production: View Askew

Kevin Smith's Clerks plays like a cross between 'Waiting for Goudot' and 'The Divine Comedy' with excessive c*** jokes thrown in for good measure. Dante (O'Halloran) is coaxed into working the morning shift at a convenience store by a boss we never see. Suffering through a duo of wisecracking drug dealers (Mewes and Smith), a parade of annoying costumers and his lazy best friend's antics (Anderson), his only solace is his doting girlfriend (Ghigliotti) who occasionally brings him lasagna. But when he discovers an ex (Spoonauer) is about to get married, things start to spiral out of control with hilarious results.

The cinematography of this film leaves little to be desired. Shot in grainy black and white, the camera is planted firmly on the ground as the actors populate the tiny store and play out the scene. Additionally O'Halloran and Anderson who share most of the screen time give it their all but try as they might, just aren't very talented actors. For all its supposed faults however Clerks comes across as endearing; like a seedling that's just pushed through fertile soil destined to change the tree-line.

What rises this film above the fold is the script. The raucous conversations between the two leads manages to make the mundane world of minimum wage counter-jockeying palpable. The film's instantly quotable dialogue may be unassuming to some today but back then it was new and exciting and to some quite threatening (the MPAA originally gave the film an NC-17 based solely on the script).

Without Clerks, the film industry wouldn't have realized the potential of the raunchy comedy genre and films like There's Something About Mary (1998), American Pie (1999), and Borat (2006) would have had a harder time making it to the Cineplexes. Additionally Clerks tapped into an audience demographic that has up until then not been recognized, i.e. fanboys. After all, who else would talk at length about the virtues of the Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983)? With a budget of approximately $27,000, the film grossed $3 million at the box office and has since become a cult favorite. How much of a cult favorite you ask? The film schools of today are cluttered with those who were inspired by two major auteurs; Tarantino and Smith. Whether you think that's a positive is up to you.

Final Grade: A