In this day and age, one might not think about how a Gen X-shaped script can fit into a Gen Z media-consuming hole. That is, until Kevin Smith releases a new movie. A proud Jerseyite with a knack for visual and verbal abrasion, Smith’s likability is a bit localized to a humor adopted by a specific generational frame of cynics, comic fans, and people amused by tangential word vomit. Even within the cohort, I sometimes struggle to accept him as my wordsmith lord and savior; Chasing Amy, in all its problematic fame, is still one of my favorite comfort films.
All of this is to say that his newest flick, The 4:30 Movie, will most likely be the least divisive notch of his works. Joining the trend of directors dusting off their memories for the camera, Smith centers a day in the life in central Jersey suburbia around the spunky 16-year-old film nerd Brian (Austin Zajuk). The movie starts with Brian asking a year-long-crush Melody (Siena Agudong) on a date to the 4:30 screening of Bucklick, a rated-R detective flick (as a disclaimer, Kevin Smith’s concept of heterosexual flirtation has always churned my stomach, so it’s not the best of opening scenes). Like his other films, 4:30’s containment-of-a-day navigates with conversations leading up to the climax of the Event. Brian shares news of his date to his friends Belly (Reed Northrup) and Burny (Nicholas Cirillo), who were planning to do a movie marathon at the local theater that same day.
Opposed to Smith’s usual cast of adults of varying intrinsic motivation and trauma, 4:30 leans toward the bubbly side of adolescent desire and eagerness. Their age poses a problem as Brian will have to sneak into seeing Bucklick, but most of the palpable tension in the film is between him and Burny, who is not looking to have his buddy time diminished by a girl. The boys represent fragments of Smith’s personas: Brian as the good schmuck, Belly as the awkward outcast (and a face that belongs in the same league as DJ Qualls as one of those faces befitting to early ’00s teen movies), Burny as the crass and openly skeptical buddy that reflects the Jason Lee characters of yesteryear.
4:30 is not the first Smith film with young people. Yoga Hosers, the second entry of Smith’s Canadian horror trilogy, also features plucky, wise-cracking performances from Lily Rose-Depp and his daughter Harley Quinn. Though the film is very much one for unserious consideration, Yoga Hosers still is related to Smith’s lineage of crooked, spontaneous comedy. With 4:30, Smith writes a somewhat respectful in memoriam to the innocence of youth. Well, as much as he can — it can be relatively crude through Burny’s misogynistic spouts, but it’s probably as close to ABC Family as a Kevin Smith movie gets.
It’s expected that Smith will be using his repertoire of players — Lee, Harley Quinn, Justin Long, and Rosario Dawson should be on your bingo cards — but for a production this small, the expectation can overshadow the film’s personal meaning. Sometimes it works for newcomers, like Ken Jeong as the overbearing movie manager or Adam Pally as a disgruntled employee. But it’s a disadvantage for the young cast, who are naturally cohesive as a teenage-boy unit but somewhat unremarkable in the View Askewniverse that exists before them. It’s not particularly a fair assessment if I were to watch this film as its own entity and if Smith especially was trying to make the film more suited to the age group, but one can’t help but feel like it’s not filled to Smith’s capacity of semi-grating yet gratifying dialogues.
Still, some of the conversations are familiar ruminations of little relevance, though they are unfortunately confined to the unimaginative borders of suburban teenagers who watch movies all day. 4:30 sinfully uses the knowledge of the present as a way to break the fourth wall, which becomes tiring after the first joke (from a crabby production of the Star Wars franchise breaking down to TV shows and spin-offs to “Bill Cosby can never do any wrong”). But like any other Kevin Smith film, the benefit of being made by the man means that it doesn’t need the technological tricks to make it look like the summer of ’86, or the ambition for widespread attention. It’s tailored enough that whether ten or five hundred people see this movie, Smith will always have fun with a movie that belongs to him.
The 4:30 Movie
2024
dir. Kevin Smith
87 min.
Opens Friday, 9/13 @ AMC Boston Common
