Chasing Amy explores gender roles, sexual mores, and the limits of friendship with a mixture of sensitivity, raw honesty, and director/screenwriter Kevin Smith's signature raunchy humor.
Chasing Amy explores gender roles, sexual mores, and the limits of friendship with a mixture of sensitivity, raw honesty, and director/screenwriter Kevin Smith's signature raunchy humor.
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After a pair of films about hipster slackers, the work of writer-director Kevin Smith matured and gained critical respect with this low budget, independent comedy-drama about love, sex and the fine line between the two. Ben Affleck stars as Holden McNeil, a New Jersey comic book writer who is roommates with his best friend and professional partner, artist Banky Edwards (Jason Lee). Their hit comic book series, "Bluntman and Chronic," is loosely patterned after a pair of acquaintances, Jay (Jason
Mewes) and Silent Bob (played by Smith), two characters already familiar as supporting players in several Smith films. Into Holden's life comes Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), a lesbian and fellow comic book creator who 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. Chasing Amy (1997) was the third film in what Smith referred to as his "New Jersey series," films set at least partly in the Garden State and featuring the Jay and Silent Bob characters. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi
Neither PC nor crudely anti-PC, this tough and tender movie, like its characters, is prepared to take emotional risks, and the comic book milieu is deftly sketched in.
Can a script exploring some truly deep questions about human sexuality and emotions be any shoddier and wooden? Will Miramax continue to fund one of the worst directors in the business? Don't stay tuned.
Like a raw nerve tweaked over and over again by emotions both radiant and revealing, Chasing Amy is as close to a masterpiece as Smith has ever created.
Smith's most mature film. Yes, it's filled with crude dialogue, blunt descriptions of sex and an overkill of Star Wars references, but it uses these to dig deeper and make its subject matter more accessible.
The script moves beyond Smith's customary cataloguing of male adolescent ignorance and idiocy to offer sharp insights into the romanticism and pragmatism, pride and double standards that define the tangled threesome.
Like Clerks, this is a politically incorrect comedy with casual profanity, but more profoundly so. Smith doesn't play the Hollywood stereotype of lesbians as women who have not met yet the right guy.
This is simply the best Kevin Smith movie imo. While many may disagree its the from the heart feel of this movie that makes it something special and has made Kevin Smith an amazing icon to me.
Chasing Amy delivers brave, genuine, comically-rich and insightful dialogue and a great performance by Joey Lauren Adams. The character she plays is Godly (yes, with a capital G), so acutely aware and unashamed of herself and receptive to life around her. This is Kevin Smith's most mature work that I've seen, maybe out
to prove himself to his financial backers early in his career after going relatively bonkers with Mallrats. Whatever the reason, he proved he can deliver smart, intense drama along with the laughs.
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