If my life somehow depended on reciting a movie line-by-line, I’d easily choose Clue. While it premiered as a box office failure (how?), the 1985 cult classic always been a dependable, cinematic balm for my soul. Clue is a perfect, tight 90 minutes of quick quips and slapstick, and features one of the best ensemble casts I’ve ever seen in front of one camera. Knife to my throat, revolver to my head, I would quote it verbatim with a smile. And, I’d survive to tell the tale. 

This isn’t a frivolous choice, mind you. Clue’s been with me forever. My earliest memories of the film formed around twenty five years ago, and all because of ABC. I spent so many of my Saturday mornings as a kid devouring ABC Family’s roster of cartoons and game shows. I’d do much the same with its weeknight lineup of spooky, silly, and sentimental films. I eventually came to cherish many of these movies as formative staples: Addams Family Values. The much less popular Addams Family Reunion. Edward Scissorhands and Hocus Pocus. And, of course, Clue. 

I have one specific memory of watching it during summer break. I was probably nine or ten years old and stayed up late to enjoy all three of the movie’s endings- each one making less sense than its predecessor. I also remember wearing twin bandaids on my face because my brother had latched onto me earlier. He dug his nails into my cheeks until they bled, tearing skin open as he fought through a meltdown none of us understood yet.

Later, my father sat on the couch beside me (the most 1998 sectional sofa you can think of) and watched me with relief as the ‘whodunnit’ comedy distracted me from the evening’s ugliness. 

When I was old enough, I used my very own money to buy a copy of Clue on DVD. That sparked immediate attempts to show it to friends over and over again. I pitched it at every sleepover, every birthday party, every excuse there was to show off just how fun a board-game-turned-movie could be. To my delight, most of my friends took to it with the same enthusiasm. We’d quote it on a regular basis, weaving our favorite dialogue into everyday conversations with ease. Though, no line saw quite as much overuse as Madeline Kahn’s infamous improvisation as Mrs. White:

“I hated her SO much…flames, FLAMES. On the side of my face. Heaving breaths, heaving–”

The movie also sowed an intense love for the actual board game, while playing would reinvigorate my love for the film. I learned to rely on this positive feedback loop in times of trouble, which were numerous in my adolescence. Clue became my companion through the onslaught of panic attacks that would plague me throughout high school and college. The movie was also a white noise machine whenever I’d finally pass out from exhaustion, usually around 5 or 6 AM each day.

As I grew, I lost relationships, grades, jobs, confidence, and a fair bit of functionality to mental illness. But, as I was tossed into the unprecedented loneliness of my college years and the crippling dread of early adulthood, I had this silly little film to fall back on. On every hard day and restless night since, The Boddy Mansion (along with its cast of emotional-support culprits) has been my port in the storm.

I met my wife, Eva, in 2016. I instantly knew she’d be my wife, too. I guess that’s one of those things they get right in the movies. I showed her Clue not long after that first meeting, popping that same DVD into my Xbox 360. She ended up laughing hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Mine, too, because I’d realized this was someone I could be safe with in every room of the house we’d go on build our lives in. Nine years later, the foundation’s feeling pretty solid.

Speaking of houses, we’re newly moved into our fourth home together. We made a tough choice to leave New Jersey (and everything we knew) behind last summer, and muscled through a seven-hundred mile trek to southwest Ohio in one go. The night before we departed, however, we left the TV unpacked and fell asleep on the floor somewhere around the soup-slurping dinner scene. Well, Eva slept. I couldn’t, so I watched her quietly in the dim, grateful for her and the old, friendly glow of a story that’s lit up the dark for me so very many times.

In the days after our latest move, we were temporarily without wifi. But we had that DVD, and our laughter quickly christened the space and its towers upon towers of boxes. We immediately felt a little more like ourselves arriving at the title screen, and spent our first night reciting lines and pointing out new details we still discover on each watch. You’d think we’d be running low, but Jonathan Lynn continues to surprise and delight us when it matters most.

Life is really hard. The world is actively burning. We still aren’t fully unpacked. But Clue is always there in the moments we just need to catch our breath. 

As for all the rest to come? Well, that’s what we’re trying to find out. The who, the what, and the where of it all, one manic and murderous day at a time.