Clerks III Review: The Subtle Beauty of Ending on the Down Note
My review of Kevin Smith’s return to the Quick Stop with a grounded story about the big lives of ‘little people.’
When director and podcaster Kevin Smith revealed his plans to bring Clerks III to the screen, he said he did it because he wanted to reward the characters who made his life so rewarding. This motivation promises a very different movie than we actually get. Which is to say, the film is not a series of great-but-funny things happening to the ol’ Quick Stop gang. Instead, this movie examines mortality in a way one doesn’t expect in a film with “Clerks” in the title. This film is rewarding for the characters and the audience. Yet, unlike Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, this is not a film where every character gets their happy ending. In what some believe to be the hallmark of a truly great movie, Clerks III ends on something of a down note.
The very end of Clerks III actually reminds me a bit of the final sequence in The Wire. It’s both an ending, a new beginning, and symbolic of an ongoing cycle hidden in plain sight in American life. Unlike The Wire, however, Clerks III’s cycle is not one of violence, pain, and a futile drug war that only serves to sustain itself. Even though the director’s postscript to the movie promises at least…
