Clerks,arriving in 1994, was a cultural phenomenon for American cinema. Using what was available at his job at a convenience store, the indie artiste and smut merchant Kevin Smith made a low-budget but game-changing film highlighting the lives of nobodies wasting their 20s in a store, selling cigarettes and talking about the politics ofStar Wars. Two years later,Texan native Richard Linklaterwould release his own 20-something car lot loitering feature inSubUrbia(based on the play of the same name, written by Eric Bogosian, who also pens the screenplay). WhileDazed and ConfusedandSlacker, twoiconic hangout moviesfrom Linklater, would come beforeClerksandSubUrbia, it is those two latter films which are the most comparatively interesting.
There is a similar blasé trashiness that runs through the center of both films, supported by concrete and the white lines of parking spaces. Both focus on a particular snapshot of nothingness; of wasted potential within a slice of life view, a negative and woe-is-me perspective of people in their 20s as they just try to pass the time in just over an hour and a half of film reel.
The Corner is as Important as The Quick Stop
To the deadbeats inSubUrbia, “The Corner” outside a gas station has achieved its own title. It is their watering hole. It is where they repeatedly assemble, because it is what they know. With a simple edit and a black and white filter, one could convincingly make it look like Linklater’s crew are stood feet away from Randal (Jeff Anderson), Dante (Brian O’Halloran), and a sign that reads: “I assure you, we’re open.”
Take when Pony (Jayce Bartok) arrives back in town inSubUrbia; he cites The Corner as being this landmark (and with it, subtly suggests that nothing changes in this suburban Gen X place). These characters could quite easily be the same people to walk into Dante’s Quick Stop store inClerks, buy cigarettes, and complain. Although none of the characters from either movie would like to admit it, both places have a hold over them like the most toxic of relationships: The Quick Stop provides Dante with a paycheck (while Jay & Silent Bob can smoke outside), and The Corner gives the friends a place to meet up, drink, and shoot the breeze in a town with nothing else to do.
Both films recognize that these characters work these jobs — specifically in mundane, brightly lit stores — as a means to an end. Nazeer (Office Space’s Ajai Naidu) puts up with the guys hanging around his Food Mart inSubUrbiabecause he knows he has to work this job for now before he can get his engineering degree and a swimming pool along with it.
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Dante does the same at the Quick Stop, so he can continue to not have to face reality. The longer he furthers his career at the store, the more he can continue complaining how hard life has been on him without taking any responsibility. If Dante were to ever quit, he would be faced with actually having to try… so he flat out doesn’t. It doesn’t help either that he is surrounded by like-minded worker bees — Randal and Jay (Jason Mewes), who actively despise their customers or make their living selling petty drugs.
Dante/Jeff
Anchoring both films is the epitome of the straight man. Both nervy, anxious, and neurotic, their lives wasted following their time at college, of which they both dropped out as far as we can tell, and the best thing in their lives now is their significant others. Both Dante and Jeff (the straight man inSubUrbiaplayed by Giovanni Ribisi) consciously and unconsciously bring down everyone around them, with what little control they actively have over them as their narcissistic tendencies rule. Oh, and both of their girlfriends subsequently break up with these men before the end of their respective films.
These men’s attachment to their hometowns is also their own distinctive anchor. Destined to never leave, they are always trapped within small town ideals with no greater hopes or dreams. Dante may have some form of work ethic over Jeff, but only barely.
Randal & Tim
In the more extreme, the same could be said for Randal inClerksand Tim inSubUrbia(Nicky Katt). Both hangers-on, Tim and Randal act as the best friend role (often to the chagrin of Jeff and Dante). These people, both so bitter at their positions in life, are the wingmen and agitators, the know-it-all types straight to rile with the aim of getting a rise out of strangers just to see what they’ll do.
They’re bullshitters, having already failed — despite not even hitting 30 yet. Thankfully, Randal is the far more likable version over Tim (while not needing to resort to blanket racism or gun crime), but the point still stands. That said, Randal would also similarly get arrested inClerks 2for a racial remark (above).
Punk Sensibility
There’s asimilar pop-punk sensibilitytoClerksandSubUrbiathat’s indicative of the mid-90s, from certain scenes to actual soundtrack cues. As Dante and Randal escape the funeral parlor, check out just how similar the same intensely heavy drum beat is in relation to the intro of Buff’s job at the pizza place inSubUrbia.
Both soundtracks, even down to Olaf’s bizarre metal vocals on “Berserker,” double down on the anti-establishment theme and the generational uprising happening at the time. As teens moved into the 90s, Nirvana and Pavement’s downbeat musings ushered in a new wave of teen spirit in all its depraved and depressed glory. This comes to a head when a jealous and bitter Jeff snaps at Pony for playing his Donovan-style acoustic guitar inSubUrbia.
A Lack of Respect for Everyone Else
As Randal spits in a customer’s face, or as Buff steals a garden gnome, the films let anyone not in their 20s either drive limos for a living, be cops, undercover chewing gum salesmen, or die with erections in the bathroom out back.
Related:View Askewniverse: Every Movie in Kevin Smith’s Universe, Ranked
These films' focal points are squarely centered on late teens and 20-somethings. Their melodramatic problems (weak pay checks, films, music, hockey, and sex) and lives are magnified as such as there is nowhere else to look for the audience. It’s not even that these films disrespect anyone older, it’s just that these characters have so little recognition for their existence in the first place that the few people who are given lines most likely have a Pringle tube stuck on their wrist…
Closing Time
It’s ironic that Smith himself would attributeClerks' existence to Linklater himself and his decade-defining movie,Slacker. The aptly titled film would prove to Smith that a movie could be made on anything, no matter how mundane and small-time.
By the time that the roles had been reversed in ‘96, Linklater’sSubUrbiafeels like it’s only trying its best to capture and capitalize on what Smith had achieved withClerkstwo years prior, even down toSubUrbia’s poster that looks like a (only slightly distorted) mirror toClerks’ marketing.
So to get that straight:SubUrbiafeels reactive toClerks, which in itself was reactive toSlacker. Gotcha.
Both films, over 25 years on, show early works from directors honing their crafts.Clerksstands up better, whereSubUrbiahas aged poorly for its obtuse racism and melodramatic themes on teen suicide (Empire’s review called it a “strangely depressing experience”). Linklater went on to learn from his experiences all the same, creating more varied works and being braver with his output, fulfilling the promise of his early masterpieceSlackerwith great films likeA Scanner Darkly, School of Rock,theBefore Sunrisetrilogy, andBoyhood. Kevin Smith branched out where he could (including an odd horror phase withTuskandRed State), but would continue to return to his store to buy smokes and lottery tickets, and most recently hung out with Dante and RandalinClerks III.
