Clerks
1994 · Directed by Kevin Smith
Original language: English
- comedy
The story
Convenience and video store clerks Dante and Randal are sharp-witted, potty-mouthed and bored out of their minds. So in between needling customers, the counter jockeys play hockey on the roof, visit a funeral home and deal with their love lives.
What it’s like
Black-and-white, shot on grainy stock with flat overhead store lighting, Clerks feels like a long afternoon inside a cramped convenience store and video shop in suburban New Jersey: fluorescent hum, scuffed linoleum, shelves of cigarettes and junk food, and the flicker of a tape rewinding behind the counter. The camera mostly sits still in medium two-shots and static wides, letting the dialogue take the lead, and the score is sparse, with the occasional offhand pop song drifting through the ambient quiet. The vibe is deadpan, scruffy and quietly restless, the kind of boredom that turns chatty and absurd by the hour. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a shift-at-work mood, or a late-night rewatch with friends. Pacing is loose and conversational, built from long, talky scenes that wander into digressions. The emotional register is wry, with a gentle undercurrent of tenderness beneath the swearing and cynicism, as two aimless guys slowly face the choices they keep putting off. Language is coarse and sexual talk is frank throughout, with some brief crude imagery and a little scuffling, but no real violence and nothing disturbing. It is for people who enjoy sharp, profane, low-budget indie comedy about working-class friendship and small-town malaise.
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