One of the most common recurring trends in contemporary cinema is the tendency of any director of even the slightest stature to make a film later in their career that is either marketed as a love letter to the cinema or a distinctly personal work based on their formative years, crafting stories about their younger counterparts in some form. In many cases, the two blur together and become the foundation for some genuinely poetic, compelling storytelling in which these esteemed filmmakers reflect on their own lives and their artistic journeys to get to this particular point. Kevin Smith is something of a curiosity – he started his career with Clerks, an ostensibly autobiographical account of his time as a retail worker in New Jersey, which is not only a tremendous entry into the growing body of American independent cinema that was undergoing a meteoric rise in the early 1990s but which is one of the most brilliantly unconventional works of memoir-based filmmaking. Thirty years later, he presents The 4:30 Movie, another film based on his own life, but one that could not be more different than the work he did with Clerks (which in itself had an incredible conclusion only a couple of years ago with the third and final entry into the trilogy, which felt like Smith was bidding farewell to his visual memoirs), with both the style and substance being radically different, but exceptional in its own right. The film follows Brian David (clearly modelled after Smith), a happy-go-lucky teenager living in New Jersey in the mid-1980s, and who is at his happiest when seated in his local cinema, seeing whatever offbeat, B-movie masterpieces have made their way to his town, allowing him to momentarily alleviate the suburban ennui that keeps him and all of his friends frequently in search of meaning in an otherwise humdrum existence. Set over a single day as the protagonist and his two closest friends engage in their favourite pastime – sneaking into R-rated films and doing their best to evade detection – the film follows their efforts to hold onto these days of reckless abandon, part of them knowing that these are the moments that they will cherish as they grow older and are forced to step out of the realm of childhood naivete. Hilarious and heartfelt in tandem, The 4:30 Movie is a film that exemplifies many of Smith’s greatest skills and proves that he still has it in him to produce something extraordinary.

One particularly charming quirk about Smith’s work is that there is an argument to be made that every film he has directed in the past two decades is the one he was born to make (with a few exceptions, such as some of the more atrocious comedies he made towards the middle of the 2000s), which we can attribute to both his roots within the proverbial “slacker” cinema that emerged during the 1990s (and which he essentially helped define as a legitimate form of artistic expression), and his undying affection for genre pictures, both of which have led to some fascinating films that may not always be consistent, but have a profound dedication that means a lot when we look at them from a distance. Yet, it feels like The 4:30 Movie is yet another step closer to his ascent to become one of the elder statesmen of this particular style of storytelling. He has seemingly closed the book on the Clerks universe and its colourful occupants (but still makes a few meaningful references where appropriate) and is clearly in search of something that captures the same spirit but in a slightly different manner. This film seems to be a perfect encapsulation of this principle since it is an easygoing, seemingly effortless comedy about a group of teenagers navigating that awkward space between adolescence and adulthood, doing what they can to avoid responsibility by surrendering fully to the dog days of a seemingly endless summer, which they spend developing their identities and questioning life in a measured but meaningful manner. This is all filtered through the characters’ undying love for cinema, which Smith has always advocated for as a purely positive force, particularly for those who are still trying to find their place in a world that they don’t entirely understand. Every character in The 4:30 Movie is seemingly trying to find a way to comprehend the confusion and chaos that surrounds them, liberating themselves from their bland existence through engaging with art that transports the viewer to a different time and place, much like our own personal connection with this film, which appears quite pedestrian in theory, but has an immense depth that possesses an elegance and lust for life that is truly difficult to describe in coherent terms.

Anyone who ever wants to imply that Smith is not a beloved figure in the entertainment industry who has made countless friends along the way merely needs to glance at the credits for The 4:30 Film, where nearly every name is substantial and notable in some way. The ensemble, which is his most expansive and sprawling to date, consists of nearly two dozen exceptional performers, plucked from many different sectors and united to bring this unconventional vision to life. Most of them appear only for a single scene and play roles that are extremely brief and not at all substantial, but their presence is welcome, and they’re all wonderful. The film assembles a lovable rogue’s gallery of some of the most funny, talented performers working today, who are more than willing to lend a day or two of their time to Smith to help him realise a vision that was only possible through a truly collaborative effort. However, the beating heart of The 4:30 Movie are the three young protagonists, led by Austin Zajur in one of the year’s most delightfully surprising performances – playing the character based on the director himself, Zajur is fantastic, capturing the oscillation between deadpan wit and immature, goofy humour with incredible precision, taking what could have essentially been an insufferable character and turning him into a hero we cannot help but adore, particularly since he’s crafted as being genuinely earnest but never to the point where it feels grating or overly precocious. His companions are Reed Northrup, who initially comes across as quite one-note but eventually grows into a compelling character of his own, and the effortlessly charismatic Nicholas Cirillo, who is the most established of the trio but who is still quite young and slightly obscure, a trait that I fully expect will not last for long since his magnetism immediately indicates that he has a bright future ahead of him. The supporting cast holds their own, even if their roles are somewhat limited and not entirely fleshed out – but there’s a joy in seeing some wonderfully charming performers appear for a couple of scenes, doing their part to create this brilliant tapestry of eccentric characters that gives this film so much unique energy.

While he has never been afraid to be more ambitious (as evident by his flirtations with genres like horror and action, neither of which resulted in anything, particularly noteworthy but are still interesting in their way), Smith is a director who had always thrived when we were creating more simple works. He’s the kind of artist who can quite literally make a suburban convenience store in New Jersey feel like the setting for a sprawling operatic odyssey simply by creating meaningful stories that are driven by their heart more than their audacity. The 4:30 Movie is a fantastic example of this principle in practice – there’s something so delightfully irreverent about the way this film functions that feels heartfelt and captivating, and a lot of that is due to the tone. Taking its cue from films like American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused (which can be considered a successor in many ways), The 4:30 Movie is based on capturing the spirit of a particular era but doing so in a way that the story wasn’t sacrificed in favour of nostalgia. Smith feels a fondness for this era, but he isn’t burdened by the weight of having to constantly be trying to reinvent the form. It’s the perfect example of the “hangout film”, where we follow a group of characters over a limited timeframe as they shoot the breeze and make the most of the time they have together, which results in a freewheeling comedy that is not only superbly written (with some of Smith’s best jokes scattered throughout), but oddly philosophically resonant, having an underlying complexity that feels genuinely quite earnest and provocative, at least in how it aims to stir a very particular reaction in the viewer. However, this doesn’t mean that Smith is at all intent on creating false sensations – everything about the film is drawn from this place of authenticity, with his focus being on replicating the atmosphere of the era rather than dwelling too intently on the inconsequential details. It’s a delightfully compelling work and features some of the director’s most engaging storytelling techniques, all concealed under a steady layer of heartfelt comedy.

The 4:30 Movie is the very definition of a late-career work – Smith is still relatively young (at least in comparison to some of the other auteurs who have recently set out to make these simultaneously sprawling and intimate works about their early years), but he’s at the point where his work is being consistently re-assessed, and his status as a visionary is gradually starting to emerge once again, coming after roughly a decade in the artistic wilderness (although I have proudly gone to bat for a number of his more questionable endeavours, finding value in a lot of even his most reviled and controversial work) – and he proves that simply marching to the beat of your drum for long enough will eventually give audiences the time and space to reconsider your output and realise that there is a lot more to it than initially meets the eye. It’s not a revolutionary work in either concept or structure – but Smith never aimed it to be, and it has become more clear that he’s emphasising these smaller, more intimate works that are driven by their underlying meaning than their off-the-wall premises. He may very well return to making films like Dogma and Tusk in the coming years, but it will always be films like The 4:30 Movie that represent the best of Smith and his immense talents, which tend to be severely underappreciated despite their capacity to craft compelling, entertaining works that seamlessly blend humour and heart in increasingly more compelling ways. Offbeat and charming, the film captures the spirit of the 1980s in a way that is nostalgic without pandering to sentimentality, keeping everything matter-of-fact and sincere, which ultimately leads to a work of immense artistic virtue and one of the year’s most surprising gems, coming from someone who is steadily re-emerging as an essential voice in contemporary cinema, and who we need to continue to appreciate and laud for his unconventional but endearing artistic and philosophical vision.