The meta aspects of the story actually serve a greater emphasis on mortality — what it means to lose people, what it means to face your own death, and how that makes you consider what you’ll end up leaving behind.

For ageing Gen-Xers, however, there’s an irresistible sensibility underpinning the enterprise; they can’t call it a midlife crisis if you’ve always been disgruntled and surly.

A self-conscious detour into navel-gazing.

There are still plenty of laughs, but Kevin Smith's third Clerks movie has a lot to say about middle age friendship.