Clue (1985) VIBE Review
By Nicholas Baron
Jonathan Lynn's 1985 film Clue is a largely unexamined treasure trove of comedy. It's a progressive humour, one of brilliance, which brings light to its ever-so slight self-awareness. A brilliant example of this is its reference to communism, and its subjection in the Red Scare (link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare) of the post-WWII period, which goes double for its time setting, being set on Wednesday June 9th, 1954, evidenced by the television in the kitchen, behind Mrs. Ho, the cook, showing the live coverage from the Army-McCarthy hearings.
Clue is a film based on the Parker Bros. board game Cluedo, which is called Clue in the US. The film has three different endings: “One Way It Could Have Happened”, “Another Way It Could Have Happened” and “What Really Happened”, which shall be referred to as Ending A, Ending B and Ending C respectively. In Ending A, it's revealed to be it's Ms. Scarlett, in Ending B it's revealed to be Mrs. Peacock, and it's everyone in Ending C.
Surprisingly, most of the movie's humour was written in the script, which only raises surprise, seeing as it lands every laugh better than most would think. In fact, the only appearance of ad-libbing comes in Ending C for the film, where Ms. White describes the feelings going through her head with, and I quote, flames on the side of her face. Metaphorical, of course.
Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the brilliant acting. Sadly, if I did, we'd be here for an hour, and I'd probably bore you, so let's skip over the actors.
All in all, I think that Clue is definitely worth watching, whether it be for its great comedy, or for its brilliant acting talent, the best of which being, in my opinion, Tim Curry.
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