In an essay on the history of astronomy, Adam Smith drew a distinction between three ideas that often get conflated: wonder, awe, and surprise. His subject was our relationship to the heavens, but he took the distinction he was making to apply to all aspects of human life. Wonder he took to refer to the feeling we get whenever we encounter something truly new or novel. That feeling of ‘I didn’t know that was possible’. Awe we feel when we encounter something especially grand or beautiful, even if we’ve experienced something like it before. We may have seen waterfalls, but there is presumably something awe inspiring in seeing Niagara Falls. And Surprise is reserved for the unexpected. For those situations where we are confident about what is happening, or about to happen, but we are instead met with something we are wholly unprepared for.
The way these feelings work, they can occur individually, or in combination. Perhaps the first human to encounter Niagara Falls felt all three at once. But, over time, the surprise would wear off, then perhaps the wonder, and given enough time and exposure, maybe even the awe, though that should be the most resilient feeling of the three. The same was probably true when people first saw The Wizard of Oz or 2001: A Space Odyssey; feelings of surprise and wonder that might fade over time, but as long as we don’t rewatch these films everyday, we should be able to retain some measure of our awe when we come back to them.
I mention all of this because I wanted to talk about a movie I just saw and unexpectedly loved, but I was having trouble pinning down why exactly. I’m a pretty big fan of Kevin Smith as a person. I listen regularly to a couple of his podcasts, and I’ve greatly enjoyed some of his IP work in comics and TV, but I’m much more hit and miss on his films. The only one of his that I have really ever revisited is 1999’s Dogma (perhaps more on that in a future article), and I’ve skipped most of his output over the last 15 years. Despite that, I was intrigued when his most recent film, The 4:30 Movie, was first announced.
The film is an all-in-one-day story, set in May of 1986, built around a young teen boy trying to take a girl he likes on a first date to the movies, and all the misadventures he and his friends have along the way. It’s a fairly conventional premise, but the initial hook for me had much more to do with how it was going to be made, than what it was about. In a time when there is so much uncertainty around the movie theater business, Kevin Smith and some of his friends took over the theater from his hometown. And, in doing that, Kevin realized that because there had never been money to update the theater in any major way over the years, it was already period perfect to tell a low-budget story about his young experiences as a burgeoning cinephile and eventual filmmaker.
I love the let’s-put-on-a-show spirit of a project like this. “We have a spot we can use for a couple weeks, let’s see who’s around and make something.” This was something of the same spirit of Smith’s breakthrough, Clerks, where he maxed out all the credit cards he could get, to make a film with his friends after hours in the convenience store where he worked. If there was ever going to be a project to recapture the spirit of what initially brought Smith to the attention of the film going public, The 4:30 Movie seemed perfect to be it. And, at least in my case, my goodness did it deliver.
I LOVED this movie. So much so that I’m still kind of grappling with it, because it isn’t something built to wow an audience. It’s a simple story, sweetly told. I’m not really digging too deeply into the plot details here because ‘Young boy tries to see some movies with his friends and a girl he likes, and hijinks ensue’ does basically cover it. This is very much a case where it’s less about the tale here versus how well it’s being told.
Smith’s young cast is incredibly charming and completely believable as high school kids. Other reviewers have mentioned this, but it’s startling how much better Smith’s dialogue works when it’s coming out of the mouths of younger performers. If Smith wanted to spend the whole next act of his career making John Hughes pastiches, I would be here for it. His grown up supporting players are a lot of fun. Ken Jeong is great, chewing scenery as a theater owner who hates kids and movies. Sam Richardson has a delightful turn in a scene as a knock-off of 80’s wrestler Sgt. Slaughter, named Major Murder, who has some important advice for one of the kids. Logic and Diedrich Bader are having a blast in the schlocky film-within-the-film the kids end up watching.
The real selling point of the film for me is how well it balances sweet and funny. The kids tell jokes, but they feel natural, not overly scripted. The kids tease and fight with one another, but never so much so that it strains credulity that they would actually stay friends. Things work out with the boy and girl, but in a way that makes sense for two kids who are still just getting to know each other. Nothing too grand here. This isn’t a big budget production marvel like Oppenheimer that will fill you with awe at its scope and execution. And this isn’t any kind of form-breaking storytelling like Everything Everywhere All at Once that will make you wonder at how it all comes together. What it is, though, is surprising. Endlessly so. I didn’t know a film so simple and sweet could hit as hard for me as it did. I didn’t know that this was somehow exactly what I wanted at the moment. And, I didn’t know Kevin Smith had this in him. This is unexpectedly one of my favorite movies of the year, and I hope you check it out. Perhaps you’ll be in for a surprise, too.
Damian Masterson
Staff Writer
Damian is an endothermic vertebrate with a large four-chambered heart residing in Kerhonkson, NY with his wife and three children. His dream Jeopardy categories would be: They Might Be Giants, Berry Gordy’s The Last Dragon, 18th and 19th-Century Ethical Theory, Moral Psychology, Caffeine, Gummy Candies, and Episode-by-Episode podcasts about TV shows that have been off the air for at least 10 years.
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