Directed by:
Kevin SmithScreenplay:
Kevin SmithCinematography:
David KleinComposer:
David PirnerCast:
Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Dwight Ewell, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Ethan Suplee, Scott Mosier, Casey Affleck, Guinevere Turner (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Holden McNeil is a New Jersey comic book writer who is roommates with his best friend and professional partner, artist Banky Edwards. Their hit comic book series, "Bluntman and Chronic," is loosely patterned after a pair of acquaintances, Jay and Silent Bob. Alyssa Jones, a lesbian and fellow comic book creator, comes into Holden’s life and quickly becomes a close friend, although Holden is powerfully attracted to her. Eventually, Alyssa realizes that she is attracted to Holden as well and they begin a physical relationship, much to the consternation of Banky, whose ire over losing his best friend to a lesbian seems to border on romantic jealousy. After he learns something about Alyssa's sexual past, however, Holden's immature response to his new knowledge destroys both his romance with Alyssa and his friendship with Banky. (Miramax Films)
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Reviews (8)
Kevin Smith threw away the traditional methods of romantic comedies and built his own distinctive version of love on the skeleton of sexual differences and sins of youth. Apart from a certain amount of "cultivated vulgarity," the film is also witty and insightful, but at the same time so straightforwardly true that most mature (?) viewers will bite their lips while watching it. The cast seems oblivious to the camera and they just spew out gut-wrenching dialogue worthy of a genius that all disappointed lovers should write in their diaries. If you’re not searching for your own Amy, you can safely avoid this.
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Kevin Smith is simply talking about comic fans, relationships and lesbians. Here and there, there’s Jay and Silent Bob who are not striking back yet, but at the other hand, they’ve always got some life advice up in their sleeve. It’s weaker than Clerks, but it’s a classic Smith movie otherwise.
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I am unusually bothered by the film’s television feeling and the poor budget. Part of it is definitely intentional (it corresponds to the concept of the film), but Kevin Smith is generally known for making a lot with little – perhaps for a certain group of fans that I don't belong to. The plot is average with standard twists. What is worth paying attention to are the performances of the actors in most situations and the dynamic and well-crafted dialogues. On the other hand, the final, considerably absurd resolution, or rather Affleck's character after a lobotomy, and the excessively long running time, significantly spoiled my experience.
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Ugh, I can’t believe how many years it’s been since I first saw this film... By now, it has become an oldie and you can really tell. Watching it again today, I felt an urge to remove one star from my original rating, but I eventually decided to keep it because Ben Affleck played dumb Holden as convincingly as if not even acting. The second reason was the conversation that introduced Holden to the secrets of lesbian sex.
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In its first twenty-five minutes, Chasing Amy unfolds like a standard romantic comedy: a single guy meets a seemingly single girl, they like each other and start seeing each other. Except this girl isn’t quite so single and other girls are more interested in her than guys are. Or not? ___ Smith does not adhere to genre conventions in hardly any respect. The humour is more profane and the characters are hornier, more adept in pulp culture and not too sure about their sexual orientation. The traditional formula of getting together and breaking up does not lead to a predictable conclusion and, furthermore, is made unique from the beginning by the fact that three interdependent characters are involved. Instead of full-fledged protagonists, however, the film offers only slightly better drawn caricatures, particularly in the case of Alyssa, a sinful, emotionally unstable and somewhat hysterical woman, whom to a significant extent Smith treats as if she is nothing more than the manifestation of every nerd’s dream. As an exemplary manic pixie dream girl, she lacks a more authentic personality, and as a being from another world, her purpose is particularly to force the young, emotionally immature young protagonist to grow up (only once does the film take her perspective, in order to show us how her friends react to the relationship). The director is not interested in her story and does not try to find the logic in her behaviour. ___ Holden’s fear of loss and irreversible life decisions is best expressed by the final confrontation of all three characters. He does not want to lose anyone, nor does he want to see a vacant place on the couch. It is only after this experience that he realises he can’t always have his way, that life, like comic books, is not the fulfilment of his fantasies. So that he can take the next step in his life, he must first kill one of the characters from his comic book and thus symbolically his dependence on his current way of existence. The message that Smith attempts to put across to us certainly contains a bit of truth about life, but it is weightier than his microcosm of comic-book characters and dialogue about pop culture and penetration can bear. ___ Though I perceive realism in the depiction of interpersonal relationships and sensitivity to the characters differently, that doesn’t mean that Chasing Amy is not a first-class comedy. As a matter of fact, it is a very good comedy, thanks especially to how improbably the characters reason and act. Smith knows where to set up the camera and how to place characters in space so that a scene is funny simply due to where someone is sitting/standing and how they look. A static camera and a few alternating environments suffice for most of the film. Without such stylistic mastery and perfect timing (the crash of thunder after the proclamation of “I love you”, a hurtful conversation interspersed with a fight between hockey players), the dialogue that forms the foundation of the film would not stand out. From the midpoint of the film, Holden’s loss of balance and the increasingly dense atmosphere are more frequently expressed using a “nervous” hand-held camera and, at least in terms of the shooting method, the film moves away from the realm of farce with carefully thought-out compositions toward a more realistic recording of spontaneous emotional scenes. Even though the screenplay fails in its effort to reach maturity, I would not hesitate to call Smith’s directing mature. 75%
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Photo © Miramax Films
![Chasing Amy - Promo](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/163/996/163996203_ca7d51.jpg)
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