CLERKS
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1994 Scott Renshaw
Starring: Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghiglitotti, Lisa Spoonhauer. Screenplay/Director: Kevin Smith.
For the past few years, filmmakers have been trying to capture what it is that defines the generation which has thus far been difficult even to name. So-called "Generation X" films like SINGLES; BODIES, REST & MOTION; and REALITY BITES have tried, but their target audience seems to have rejected those attempts. At first glance, CLERKS appears to be cut from the same cloth, a bargain basement variation on tales of cynical, over-qualified and under-achieving whiners. But CLERKS is a horse of a different color (black and white, in fact), a sly episodic story with a challenging perspective.
CLERKS examines one day in the life of two 22-year-old New Jersey residents living in the exciting world of retail. Dante (Brian O'Halloran) is called in to work at his job at a convenience store on his day off; Randal (Jeff Anderson) works at the video store next door. While they share a friendship, they have little else in common. Dante hates his job but rejects the entreaties of girlfriend Veronica (Marily Ghigliotti) to return to school, and worries about leaving the store unattended. Randal, meanwhile, shuts down the video store whenever the mood strikes him, is openly hostile to his customers, and goads Dante into taking more chances. Dante also obsesses over his ex-girlfriend Caitilin (Lisa Spoonhauer), whom he has just discovered is engaged.
Made for a paltry $36,000 by writer/director Kevin Smith, CLERKS frequently shows its low-budget roots in performances which can charitably be called amateurish. Jeff Anderson in particular reads his line like a student in a high school production, and his big emotional speeches are pitched at about the same level as his sarcastic banter. Brian O'Halloran has an easy-going and engaging presence, but he's often far too broad in his physical acting. Only Lisa Spoonhauer as the sexy and sharp Caitlin puts much real spark into her performance. Smith's direction is simple, but his insistence on swinging his camera back and forth in two-character scenes also proves distracting. Like GO FISH earlier this year, CLERKS is occasionally just a bit too clunky to be completely endearing.
The episodes which make up CLERKS are of inconsistent quality, but the good ones are very good. A conversation between Dante and Veronica concerning their respective sexual histories is a riot, and Dante and Randal share an illuminating discussion on the moral implications of blowing up the "outside contractors" working on the second Death Star in RETURN OF THE JEDI. The dialogue is filled with ultra-crude observations which almost earned CLERKS an NC-17 rating, but they're caustic and on-target. Randal in particular, who acts both as the devil on Dante's shoulder and as the real voice of reason in CLERKS, gets some marvelous lines, though virtually every one of them is unprintable. Less effective are sequences involving a roller hockey game on the store's roof which simply lasts too long, and a montage of annoying customer types which is a bit is too cutesy.
But CLERKS turns out to be more than just the sum of its parts. In the final fifteen minutes, Smith begins pulling the threads of his narrative together with a surprising message about the twenty- somethings. Dante becomes a character representative of everything that is wrong with his generational peers, wallowing in self-pity and willing to blame everyone but himself for the circumstances of his life, and Randal's brutally honest rebuke is perhaps the film's highlight. Kevin Smith places himself in the awkward position of chastising those who are most likely to be his audience, and it is that daring that makes CLERKS most worthy of admiration; it is not often that personal responsibility is the moral to a story. While he may not have had all the tools at his disposal that a studio filmmaker would have had to tell this story, Kevin Smith did have a story to tell. CLERKS is unquestionably uneven, but it is also a very funny wake-up call to the over-the-counter culture.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 retail clerks: 7.
-- Scott Renshaw Stanford University Office of the General Counsel
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