Kevin Smith is first and foremost a writer before a director, so feel free to say shit about his directing style, although I personally don't mind it. Smith is mostly known for his dick and fart jokes from his first directorial feature CLERKS up to ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO, and yeah, he had a fanbase, and he wrote accordingly. But unlike a lot of writers in town, he crafts perhaps some of the most honest, realistic, and heart-tugging characters, scenes, conversations and relationships on film. Sure, I have no doubt a lot of folks will disagree - after all, I'm a young chap who still has a lot of movies to experience, but right now, when I think of a great couple that completely gets me absorbed into a movie, the will they? won't they? chemistry between Dante Hicks and Becky Scott is mesmerizing.Dante is scheduled [yep, right word] to get married in the very immediate future, and if there's one person who could possibly talk him out of it, it's Becky. Randal could try, but Dante and Randal don't exactly have that type of relationship. Becky and Dante have about two scenes together without anyone else, but those two scenes are masterpieces. The screencap above is from their first solo scene, where they just have a conversation about the connotations of 'love' and the romantic form of 'love'. Technically speaking, although they do have a sort of past, they aren't a official romantic couple through the majority of the movie - it's more like a courtship that's being wrestled with in Dante's heart and mind. And Becky, played by Rosario Dawson, damn if she's not one of the most perfect women ever made on this earth...
Oh, and that second scene. Dante's a tad worried about the whole dancing at the wedding thing, so Becky brings him to the building rooftop to teach him some moves to the Jackson Five's "ABC." [FYI: At this second as I'm writing this, the music used for the CLERKS II opening theme is playing in my University's computer lab. Oh, yeah, this is so a sign from Those Up High]. The relationship these two had grabbed me immediately, and if those two hadn't had some sort of resolution, I would have been freakin' pissed, and I can't really make that claim about a lot of will they?/won't they? couples on film. And that's a great part of Kevin Smith's writing abilities, but I'll say that glamorous article for another time.
I'm not much of a romantic, and I don't respond all that deeply to a lot of cinematic courtships, but Dante and Becky is sure as hell at the very top.
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