‘Clifford’, in essence, is a parody of the ‘troublemaker kid’ movie genre that had a bit of a resurgence in the early half of the 90s. A period of time that gave us ‘Home Alone 1+2’, ‘Dennis the Menace’, ‘Blank Cheque’, ‘Getting Even with my Dad’, and ‘The Sandlot Kids’…These were movies that featured actual children, wisecracking, getting one over on the adults, pulling pranks, setting traps and being frankly incorageable.
The big twist with ‘Clifford’ and the thing that really acts as its main draw, is instead of a child actor playing the neredowell kid role, it’s Martin Short playing a precocious to the point of satanic evil darling, the titular ‘Clifford’.
Clifford is manipulative, gaslighty, phoney, psychotic, meniacle, capable of complex scheming and planning and deeply malevolent…and thats just the nice things…and the film opens in the far future of 2050, with an older Clifford explaining to a wayward child how he was a troublemaker when he was a lad.
The plots pretty straightforward, Cliffords on a business trip with his parents, but he REALLY wants to go to Dinosaur World, a dino theme park in California. But his parents business trip is in Honolulu. So…Clifford causes a major incident during the flight (he turns off the planes engines) to force an emergency landing in California so that he can go to Dinosaur world. But the end result is Clifford being banned from airtravel for the forseeable. and his parents potentially missing out on thousands of dollars in conference speaking fees.
That is until Cliffords father plays a last hope, roll of the dice and calls his brother Martin. The pair havent really spoken to each other in years, Martins an architectual designer in an long term relationship/engagement with his partner, the lovely Miss Sarah. But theres a bit of trouble brewing, as Sarah is a teacher and desperately wants children…and Martins obsessed with his work and isnt really interested in kids. When Sarah pushes the issue, Martin tries to fein enthusiasm for having kids, when his brother calls him to ask if he’d mind looking after Clifford for a couple of weeks till they get back from their business trip.
Martin jumps at the chance, thinking it’ll take the heat off of him from Sarah AND potentially allay any fears that he isnt interested in kids. But things go rum pretty quickly, when Martin tells Clifford he helped design some of the rides at Dinosaur World, and that he’ll take clifford as soon as possible…something Clifford clings to with a vice like grip…When Martin gets an emergency project dropped on him at work, he has to cancel the trip with Clifford, and…well, all hell breaks loose, as Clifford quite literally tries to tear Martins world apart over a broken promise…
I largely checked this film out tonight after seeing the ‘look at me like a human boy’ scene on Tiktok not too long ago, and…im gonna be honest, I think your milage may vary depending on how into comedy thats purposfully trying to test your patience you are really.
Me? I love comedy thats trying to see how far it can mess with its audience, and as a parody of those kinds of precocious kid comedy movies. I think this absolutely nails the brief. taking a usually pretty kooky adventure and ramping it up into a truely demented and at times sincerely bleak place.
The pacings pretty solid, I gut laughed at least a few times over the full run of the film…Is it the funniest thing ever? no…I wouldnt go that far, but when it hits it scratches a very specific itch for me. Tonally, its a tongue in cheek farce comedy that does have a couple of moments of pathos buried in it. The films intentionally trying to be insincere to the audience, but as soon as you as the audience recognise that, a whole other level of comedy opens up.
The characters are all pretty well written I thought, and theres some genuinely nice character pieces in here mixed in with the absurd comedy moments. Martin Shorts performance will likely split the room between folks who think its some great physical work, in the same vein as Norman Wisdom and the likes…and those who would gladly run their eyes through a rotary cheesegrater than experience one more minute of gurning. But I felt he landed on the right side of things for me, and really captured that wonderfully hideous charactism.
This is a studio pic, and as such the direction and cine are all above board, I think its probably quite underplayed, but the visual direction of this film is actually pretty superb, it reminded me a little bit of ‘Pee Wees Big Adventure’ in places, and the experimentation, particularly in the 3rd act was a really nice touch. Compositions are decent, theres a clear creative vision on hand, and while it didnt exactly blow me away, I will say my expectations were exceeded here.
The triptic of Short, Charles Grodin and Mary Steenburgen is a superb mixture, with Grodin slowly losing his mind over Short, but having to keep the illusion up to a tentative Steenburgen that Him and Short are great friends…its a fun dynamic that maybe wears a little thing in the middle, but then picks back up before the end.
I think the only thing I didnt really like about ‘Clifford’ other than some minor pacing issues and a couple of hideous transphobic gags, is just that the ending doesnt entirely feel earned. I think had it had maybe another 5 minutes or so just to give the film something a bit more sturdy to end on, it could have taken it to a whole other level, as it stands it feels rushed, and given everything Martins character went through across the film, I dont feel like how they ended the story lined up with what an actual reality for this situation would be…
Nevertheless…I had fun with Clifford, and I think, if I caught this again in the right headspace, I’d probably like it even more…Definitely an acquired taste of a movie…But theres a lot to like about it…and then there’s Clifford.
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