Chasing Chasing Amy
Even with some of the movies that mean the most to us, our relationship with it can change over time. One of the best things about Sav Rodgers’s documentary, “Chasing Chasing Amy,” is that the director- in looking at the legacy of Kevin Smith’s 1997 romantic comedy- finds himself at a crossroads with the film as he goes through the process of creating this love letter to it, and exploring its complicated place in LGBTQIA+ cinema. We’ll get to that in this review, but it’s not the most impactful part of the film.
“Chasing Amy” was the first of Smith’s films that really landed with me. Now, he’s one of my favorite filmmakers, and I’ve come to appreciate the films that came before “Chasing Amy” more, but his story of a comic book artist who falls in love with a lesbian connected with me, because it was funny, it felt honest, and it came from a genuine place. Yes, there are things about it that really are rough to watch now, but it remains a terrific film because it follows Holden and Alyssa to a genuine place, both in their relationship together, and when they’re out of a relationship.
When he first watched the film, Sav was at a point in his life where he wasn’t sure about his own sexuality and sense of identity, but others felt like they knew. In a 2018 TED Talk, Sav talks about being bullied, and how “Chasing Amy” gave him a vocabulary and a place where he could see parts of his own life reflected back at him. That is a powerful thing to feel in a piece of storytelling, and it’s something I’ve found myself thinking about other movies myself. In making this film, Sav wanted to explore the film’s impact, and have the chance to show his appreciation to the people responsible for it. But during one particular interview, he has to step back, and reconsider his motives. The wherewithal to be able to do that is extraordinary, and a credit to him as a filmmaker, a storyteller, and a person.
We get a lot of context for “Chasing Amy” that Smith has laid the groundwork for over the years, but thankfully, from other perspectives from just his own. We hear from Guinevere Turner, who was in the film, and was also the screenwriter of “Go Fish,” a lesbian drama that played Sundance the same year “Clerks” did. We hear from Jason Lee, Scott Mosier, and other filmmakers and writers like Princess Weekes and Kevin Willmott. We also hear from Smith himself, who befriends Sav, as well as Joey Lauren Adams. While I’ve always known that the film was inspired by Smith and Lauren Adams’s relationship together, hearing them talk about it, both in a joint interview, as well as individual interviews, is revealing in ways that Sav did not anticipate.
The one, fundamental truth anybody who watches “Chasing Amy” comes away with is how absolutely fantastic Joey Lauren Adams is as Alyssa Jones, the lesbian comic writer who has a relationship with Ben Affleck’s Holden, only to see it fall apart when Holden’s insecurity gets in the way. She is the best thing about the movie. Being able to interview Lauren Adams for his film is probably the biggest coup for Rodgers. We first see her in a joint interview with Smith, and they speak about their relationship and how it played into the film. We then see an interview with Lauren Adams by herself, and suddenly, the tone changes altogether. It’s obvious that the film still means something to her, but it did not offer the same catharsis for her than it did for Smith, and we get her take on Harvey Weinstein at Sundance ’97, which is where he raped Rose McGowan, and the raw pain and unease she has about that time in her life jars Sav. While it was definitely the least conventional interview Lauren Adams has ever had about the film- and thus, one of the best- it throws Sav, and he takes steps away from making the film, both for personal, family reasons, as well as the fact that he needs to figure out his own reasons for making the film.
Throughout the film, we get to see a lot of Sav’s girlfriend, and later wife, Riley. In a lot of ways, it feels like their relationship almost mirrors Holden and Alyssa’s at times, and for Sav, Riley is a lifesaver. For much of the film, Sav’s relationship with Smith’s film is the driving force of the narrative, but at a certain point, he turns the camera to himself, and in the final moments- where the focus is on he and Riley- we feel like he’s at a point where he’s ready to move past “Chasing Amy,” and the past turmoil that it sits in (both personally and in creating this film), and has a better sense of who he is. Art, at its best, is about self discovery, and “Chasing Chasing Amy” is a reflective, moving, and entertaining example of that.
