Platonic friends Zack (Seth Rogen, left) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) try to deal with their escalating debts by making an adult movie in Zack and Miri Make a Porno. (Alliance Media)

Fourteen years ago, Kevin Smith stepped into the then-thriving American independent film scene with Clerks, a movie about New Jersey slackers that cost $26,685 to make and grossed more than $3 million US. Chronologically, the Clerks phenomenon only just predated the “Me, too!” digital filmmaker boom, but Smith’s spirit seems right in tune with the YouTube era — crass, cheerful and anti-elitist, he’s a director who’s more likely to reference Star Wars than Werner Herzog.

Smith’s films are not beautiful, or even inventive; they’re shot with all the élan of an episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Still, Smith has occasionally attempted to parlay the success of his youth into slightly more challenging work — if not visually, then thematically. There’s Dogma, a clogged-artery Catholic comedy, starring Alanis Morissette as God; and Jersey Girl, a sentimental rom-com featuring Bennifer (RIP, alpha superstar portmanteau!). But even when he stretches out, Smith has never changed the basic molecular structure of his slight though not unenjoyable films, wherein a bunch of semi-moronic people, thrust together, try to figure each other out.

With Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Smith sticks to those Clerksian fundamentals. The film’s language is the smart, wretchedly foul chatter of Smith’s adored McJob class, and it sounds a declaration to Judd Apatow: “Not so fast — I was here first.”

In some ways, Zack and Miri resembles Smith’s best film, Chasing Amy, though it lacks the emotional wallop of that tale about the doomed affair between a bisexual woman and an immature man. But the structure — dork guy must get it together to be worthy of cool chick — is one that’s ubiquitous lately, in Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, all films that have been touched by Apatow.

In those blockbusters, a soft kind of comedy dominates; any initial ick factor ends up buried beneath a coat of sweetness. Smith does not have the same boundaries (if he has any). Within the first few minutes of Zack and Miri, there are jokes about a hand warmer getting stuck to someone’s privates, and three or four “taking a dump” punchlines. And yes, Smith keeps this pace throughout. At some point in the onslaught of stomach-churning chuckles — perhaps it was when a character accidentally defecated on another’s face (spoiler! — and I use that word intentionally) — it seemed like Smith had surpassed not just himself, but all the gross-out comedians who came before: the Farrellys, Tom Green, Kenny and Spenny. (Toronto’s Kenny Hotz actually makes a cameo.) If you don’t care to tip your hat to Smith’s sheer dedication to disgust, you may still appreciate the novelty. Comedies have been so dominated of late by the formulaic cuteness of the Apatow imprint that it’s kind of nice to see a film that doesn’t fear alienating an audience (and yes, there will be alienation).

Burly, chuckling Zack is played by Seth Rogen, thus furthering the Apatow connection. Zack’s a stunted 28-year-old working in a coffee house, living platonically with his best friend from high school, Miri (Elizabeth Banks, always a bright light, and unafraid to give as gross as she gets). The pair never escaped their childhood small town of Monroeville, Penn., a strip-mall laden outpost encrusted in ice and snow. Unpaid bills mean Zack and Miri have lost heat and water, and are now washing their hair from the back of the toilet and warming their crappy apartment by lighting fires in barrels. Time to make a porno and get rich!

A large chunk of the film revolves around Smith’s adolescent pleasure in bringing to celluloid those drunken conversations he (like you) has obviously had about the great, unmade porn movie. (Lawrence of a Labia is the best offering.) Zack and Miri settle on calling theirs Star Whores, and cast their droids and space queens (including former real-life porn star Traci Lords). The slapstick centre of the film is about what goes wrong on the shoot, but what’s really going on is a blossoming romance between Zack and Miri, an obvious yin and yang in denial of the universe’s plans for their romantic union.

Does it really matter that this is, in effect, a movie about a porn movie? Not really. What makes Smith’s movies interesting is his fixation on human politics, the weird and stupid ways in which we miss each other. At his 10-year high school reunion, Rogen stands across from a gay porn star (Justin Long) and listens to him argue with his boyfriend, as they discuss their sex life in graphic detail. “This is the greatest conversation ever,” Zack mutters to himself, wide-eyed and cheerful. The scene is prurient, and may be offensive to some, but Zack’s pleasure in observing these guys talking intimately doesn’t seem homophobic. (Unlike, say, Talladega Nights, in which a gay kiss is the film’s self-consciously scandalous, implicitly repulsive punch line.)

Zack (Seth Rogen, left), producer Delaney (Craig Robinson, centre) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) plan their film, a sci-fi parody called Star Whores. (Alliance Media)

Zack may be naïve and clueless and a straight man who enjoys the word “butt,” but his curiousity about his new gay acquaintance is a variation on the question: Why are people the way they are? Smith’s movies often interrogate racial attitudes, too. This time, the lightning rod is Delaney (Craig Robinson, from The Office), as the film’s black barista-turned-producer with a fridge-sized chip on his shoulder.

The characters in Judd Apatow’s films, by contrast, exist in worlds that appear to be post-racial, entirely apolitical and always sunny. It may seem strange to say this about a guy who loves a granny panty gag, but Smith digs a little deeper than most comedy directors today, using his louche, slovenly, unbeautiful movies to ask real questions about America.

The love story in Zack and Miri is as gentle as in an Apatow film. It’s another man-child forced to grow up, though this time — refreshingly — the girl is as much a mess as the guy. Watching these two likable actors delay their affair — due to miscommunications and emotional retardation and struggles with the social structure of their time — it struck me: Smith is the Jane Austen of his day, except he’s not a genius and his art is a lot pornier. Long live the independent spirit.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno opens Oct. 31.

Katrina Onstad is the film columnist for CBCNews.ca.