Written and Directed by Kevin Smith
With all of the cinematic love stories that are released in our movie theaters every year, so very few of them have ever worked for me emotionally. I am typically not very moved as I watch two people fall in and out and back into love again. Perhaps I am just not sensing any true chemistry between the leading actors. Or maybe, I am just not detecting a certain sense of truth in the actual screenwriting. Or maybe, situations are just either too commercially or stupidly contrived or handled too simplistically for me to care at all. In recent years, I would say that my distaste stems from a combination of all of those elements, plus a few more at that. When it is all said and done, and after every declaration of love has been uttered and that final screen kiss occurs just before the end credit scroll, the entire proceedings just feel so false and ultimately, empty.
Dear readers, much like so many of you, I have been in love. I have experienced countless intense crushes throughout my life. Memories of unrequited experiences still carry a sting if I linger within my past a tad too long. I am in love now and have weathered the ebbs and flows of that love for almost half of my life. In the movies, when it comes to love stories, I am looking for the reality of love and it is that very reality that is sadly lacking in these films that get themselves released from week to week. Yes, movies are fantasies and dreams and I love to lose myself into those worlds just as much as anyone else. Yet, I cannot divorce myself from the realities of falling in love, navigating love and staying in love. Love, by its nature is not clean or easy. It is often very messy. And I guess when I go to see a movie love story, my hope is to experience something that acknowledges that sense of messiness and internal conflict that accompanies those times where the heart soars at the mere thought of the object of one’s affection. I need to be moved and I need to see something that is more hard fought than is typically shown.
Over and again I have written about how much the romanticism depicted in the films of John Hughes, Cameron Crowe and Woody Allen for instance have touched my soul throughout my life. What are Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” (1995) and “Before Sunset” (2004) but delirious odes to love, romance, desire and how it holds us within its powerful grasp through the years?
For this edition of “Savage Cinema Revisits,” I turn my attention to Writer/Director Kevin Smith’s “Chasing Amy.” This is my favorite movie from a filmmaker who has created several audaciously brilliant pieces of work from his startling debut “Clerks” (1994) and its 2006 sequel, plus the epic religious satire “Dogma” (1999) and the meta-cartoon lunacy of “Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back” (2001). But “Chasing Amy,” in my mind, is a true anomaly, even moreseo as I feel that so few films have even approached what Smith beautifully accomplished within his third film. “Chasing Amy” concocts a love story that illustrates so wrenchingly how it feels to be in love and to this day, there are sequences that are still almost too difficult to sit through due to their emotional honesty and reality. I first saw “Chasing Amy” during its original 1997 release at Madison’s’ Majestic Theater (which is now a trendy nightclub) and while I had expected to laugh riotously with Smith trademark loquaciously literate, hysterical and vulgar dialogue (and I did) what I had not expected was to feel so emotionally exhausted by the film’s conclusion. Kevin Smith had put me through the wringer.
“Chasing Amy” stars Ben Affleck and Jason Lee as New Jersey residents Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards, life long best friends, current roommates and collaborators on a popular comic book series entitled “Bluntman and Chronic” (two stoned superheroes which feature the likenesses of their goofy drug dealer friends, Jay and Silent Bob played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, respectively). During a New York comic book convention, the twosome meets fellow comic book writer/artist Alyssa Jones (a wonderful Joey Lauren Adams) and Holden is instantly captivated. Unfortunately, for Holden, he soon discovers at New York nightclub Meow Mix, that Alyssa Jones is not as she first seemed to be as she is actually a lesbian.
Despite this revelation, Holden and Alyssa soon begin to build a close friendship, which deeply irritates Banky, whose jealously is fueled with fears of losing his closest friend and artistic partner. Complications thicken after Holden professes his love for Alyssa, a love that she surprisingly reciprocates, thus angering Banky even more as well as alienating her lesbian friends in the process.
Where “Chasing Amy” makes its most surprising and painful stretches in the film’s second half as Holden is confronted with Alyssa’s past romantic/sexual life and how that knowledge threatens to derail the very relationship he has longed for. During this half, Smith brings out all of the stops in a film that has already broken so many barriers and has challenged so many perceptions and stereotypes held by every audience member that chooses to view the film. The arguments between Holden and Alyssa are nearly brutal in their intensity and the romantic ache their conversations leave in their wake is paralyzing. We understand how each party feels, the mistakes that have been made between them, and the respective hurts they each experience because we have all been there ourselves.
After re-watching “Chasing Amy,” I am reminded and yet still amazed with exactly how much Kevin Smith got absolutely right with this film, from the main storyline to even the surrounding aesthetics. For instance, I especially loved the attention Smith gave to the world of comic book authors and illustrators. I think this is quite notable since this film was released during the horrifically clichéd “Generation X/Slacker” era and here were a collective of characters that were defiantly not slackers. They were ambitious, hard working young people all desiring to leave an artistic and decidedly individualistic stamp upon their world. The theme of weighing one’s personal integrity vs. cynical careerism figures heavily into the subplot about Holden’s conflict with “Bluntman and Chronic” potentially being adapted into a 12 episode animated series. Additionally, and though this may seem more than a bit ridiculous, even Jay and Silent Bob also follow their own paths with diligence. They are not shiftless layabouts and for that matter the twosome remain fiercely determined to live their lives on their own terms, quite possibly the primary theme of “Chasing Amy” as a whole.
“Chasing Amy” succeeds so grandly because it exists as so much more than a love story, a love triangle and even more than some misguided male fantasy at that (although Smith slyly utilizes the character of African-American homosexual male comic book artist Hooper-played greatly by Dwight Ewell-to comment upon that very fantasy with references to “lesbian chic”). Kevin Smith tapped into something much deeper partially because he bravely opened himself up for his art. For a time, Smith dated Joey Lauren Adams and he has expressed that some aspects of their relationship did indeed make their way into the final screenplay. But Kevin Smith is astute enough as a writer and filmmaker to know that essentially creating a diary on film is not enough. Everything has to serve the characters and the story and Smith repeatedly has proven that he absolutely understands characters and the art of storytelling.
As far as love stories are concerned, there is not one contrived moment in the film although it does, to a degree, adhere to the formula of a movie love story. Yes, we have the “falling in love” montage set to a jangly alternative pop song but, Smith completely nails the rhythms of a courtship. Furthermore, he completely understands the relationship dynamics when one participant is head over heels in love with the other but always performs an eggshell dance so as to not permanently damage everything that has been built.
Holden McNeil is a character I can fully relate to as I saw, and still see, aspects of him within myself, most notably in his beautiful romantic confession to Alyssa on a fateful rainy night after yet one more “pseudo date,” as Banky would scornfully express. His monologue to Alyssa is as open-hearted as anything I have ever seen in any film where love is professed from one towards another. With Holden, loves comes tumbling from his heart, fully, completely and after much internal wrestling with himself over whether he should say one word or keep it all to himself. But, part of the painful beauty of “Chasing Amy” is to see how far his love for Alyssa fails him.
If I were to utilize one word to perhaps describe “Chasing Amy,” it just may be “autumnal.” That melancholic feeling of autumn as the chill in the air becomes more prevalent and the realization of the coming winter signifies a seasonal ending came to me as I re-watched the film. For Holden and Banky, like the teenaged protagonists in Alfonso Cuaron’s extraordinary “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (2001), “Chasing Amy” depicts their transformative growth into a newfound emotional adulthood as well as detailing the end of their relationship, which is essentially their marriage. Holden and Banky physically resemble each other greatly. They essentially dress the same as well. Their personalities compliment each other’s comfortably. Even Hooper expresses to Holden in one scene that Banky “loves you in a way that he is not ready to deal with.”
Despite their mid to late 20s age, Holden and Banky’s emotional growth has stagnated them somewhere in adolescence (a constant theme for Smith, who minutely explores male relationships in one film after another) and if not for Alyssa’s arrival, they would have happily remained in that developmental stage and with each other. Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards have an enormous amount of growing up to do and certainly, Alyssa Jones' presence sends them both into a tailspin. One scene I love is the one where Banky finds Holden and Alyssa wrapped in a post-coital embrace upon the couch he purchased and simply wants to watch TV upon. In a quick moment, Banky realizes that their relationship has all but ended and in a rare moment of quiet, reflective vulnerability, as the two men sit upon a stoop looking nostalgically at the Catholic schoolgirls across the street, Banky expresses to Holden that “This is all going to end badly.” That, dear readers is autumnal to me.
Regardless of Holden’s sensitivity, compared to Banky’s abrasiveness and rampant homophobia, the narrow field of his emotional range and social outlook derails him in his relationship with Alyssa. Frankly, no matter how much he loves Alyssa Jones, he is too conservative, too suburban, too sheltered, too Catholic, too immature and possesses too fragile of a heterosexual male ego to truly accept Alyssa Jones for who she is and sadly, for how much she loves him. And what a shame as gaining the love from someone like Alyssa Jones is a love so profoundly earned.
I wish I could fully express to you how much the character of Alyssa Jones means to me. While I didn’t think this at the time I first saw the movie, I now feel that Alyssa Jones, as portrayed so pitch -perfectly by Joey Lauren Adams, is the most forward thinking and conceived character in all of Kevin Smith’s films. She is also one of the most forward thinking and conceived characters of the entire romantic comedy film genre during the late 20th century, and let’s fact it, even during these early stages of the 21st century. Honestly, dear readers, I am not attempting to sound hyperbolic. But has there been anyone like her in anything that stars either Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl?
Everything about Alyssa Jones flies in the face of every possible stereotype carried by every audience patron who views this movie. At the time of its original release, I had several female friends, including a couple of lesbian friends, who absolutely hated Alyssa Jones. They felt her to be nothing more than a caricature, a cartoon, a male fantasy creation and perhaps there may be some truth to that. But, as often as I have seen this film, I think some of those feelings may say more about those people than it does about this character. Alyssa Jones lives on her own terms. She is a complete individual who has absolutely no interest in living up to anyone else’s expectations or perceptions about what a lesbian should or shouldn’t be. Or better yet, what she, as a human being, should or shouldn’t be. And for some, that level of individuality is threatening because it forces one to confront their own levels of prejudice, judgment and acceptance. Alyssa’s sexual history, experimentation and journey is entirely her own. Not Holden’s. Not even for any of her lesbian friends. And if any of them are not able to understand or accept, then so be it. As she vehemently screams to Holden during a volcanic fight sequence outside of a hockey rink, “…good or bad-they were my choices, and I’m not making apologies for them now-not to you or anyone!”
That being said, it is very easy for me to see how and why Holden could fall in love with her so easily. Yes, she is attractive. Yes, she has that breathy purr of a voice. For Holden, they have their careers as common ground. She is quick witted, a great conversationalist, friendly, warm, generous and most of all, she is so open-hearted that I found her to be quite irresistible.
I think that I even fell for her in the sequence, which I will call “the swing set scene,” one of my favorite scenes that Kevin Smith has ever written. While it is a short scene, it is by turns humorous, provocative, playful, tender, gentle, salacious, undeniably adult and unashamedly innocent. Taking place the day after Holden has realized that the object of his affection is a lesbian, the “swing set scene” is all anchored by this passage from Alyssa, which sets the scene in motion.
“I like you. I haven’t liked a man in a long time. And I’m not a man-hater or something. It’s just been some time since I’ve been exposed to a man that didn’t immediately live into a stereotype of some sort. And I want you to feel comfortable with me because I want us to be friends. So, if there are things you’d like to know, it’s okay to ask me.”
Sigh…and yet so bittersweet, as the scene presents a love of such possibility.
That is precisely what makes “Chasing Amy” a film to root for and what also makes it so crushingly heartbreaking. Like a slow-motion car crash, we can see every single mistake that Holden McNeil is about to suffer for. We understand his confusion entirely but we understand Alyssa’s love for him even more and wish that he grows up enough to hold onto this love which will not arrive in the same way ever again should he lose this one. It is bracing, powerful, delicate, and sorrowful. And again, I ask you, dear readers, when was the last time you have seen a contemporary film love story that had characters as richly three-dimensional as Holden, Banky and Alyssa and filled with an urgency like the one presented here?
“Chasing Amy” is a fearless movie. It may have been terrifying for Kevin Smith to lay himself out so openly but it was to his, and our, artistic gain. For Kevin Smith, that very fearlessness is what has made him one of film’s most unique voices and that lack of fearlessness is what has made later films like the juvenile “Zack And Miri Make A Porno” (2008) feel like he was just treading water and “Cop Out” (2010) such an empty one.
What Kevin Smith gives us, when he gives us his best, is his sense of honesty. As he has already announced his plans for cinematic retirement, I wish for him to fully embrace that unblinking honesty and fearlessness once again for his upcoming “Red State” and his two-part hockey comedy-drama finale “Hit Somebody.” For now, we have “Chasing Amy” a film to embrace, a film that endures, one that we can feel so fully and one that can break our hearts over and over again.
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