Chasing Amy was one of the very first screener cassettes I got while working at Front Row. Since it had only been in the local theater for approximately twenty three minutes, I was more than excited to be one of the earliest, out of the people that I knew, to watch it. I’d certainly heard thanks to my faithful readership of Entertainment Weekly that it was a “boy meets lesbian” film, but they assured me that it was still filled to the brim with his usual raunchy dick and fart jokes.
For the most part, they weren’t wrong. Smith’s gift with dialogue and diatribes is on full display in most every scene, especially ones with Mallrats holdover Jason Lee. The My Name is Earl actor is the perfect delivery service for Smith’s more outlandish statements, as he says them with such sincerity and determination that you have no trouble believing in the long list of sexual conquest injuries he’s received in a scene that is a wonderful homage to Jaws. While Lee’s Banky Edwards provides a wonderful amount of comic relief as a comic book inker (fucking tracer) it’s his artistic partner Holden McNeil that carries the dramatic load of the story.
Holden McNeil, played by Ben Affleck, is in love with Alyssa Jones, a comic book creator as well. They have an unusual “meet cute” at a local bar after a comic book convention and Alyssa, played by the sultry voiced Joey Lauren Adams, invites him to a bar/concert the following evening. Holden is 100% sure that they are going to share a moment, but unfortunately, at least for the moment, that isn’t in the cards as he comes to the realization that Alyssa Jones likes girls.
This is where Entertainment Weekly got it wrong. It’s not a boy meets lesbian story as they proclaim, simply because it’s not accurate to describe her as such. In the years that have followed since Chasing Amy came out, as a culture we’ve learned more about the LGBTQ+ community, and one of the things this film taught me is that sexuality is not a simple box and categorize system, but a broad spectrum in which people can fall.
Alyssa Jones is an incredibly complex character and it’s easy to see why anyone, regardless of identity, can fall in love with her. She’s smart, witty, sexy, and from the looks of their date night of skeeball, a hell of a lot of fun. From the beginning it appears that Holden’s quest to make them work is doomed, and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with her sexuality.
Smith has stated numerous times that writing Chasing Amy was cathartic for him because it dealt with his past failures as a boyfriend and his inability to move past his partner’s sexual history. Besides his obvious gift for humor, Smith has always been able to write with honesty and heart, and when his character of Silent Bob eventually gives Holden some much needed advice, and the title of the film, it becomes clear that his feelings of inadequacy are all over the script. It was an incredibly bold and brave choice and the script was well deserving of the Best Screenplay award it won at the Independent Spirit Awards (Lee also won Best Supporting Actor).
For those of you who love Smith thanks to the humor he showcased in Clerks and Mallrats, dont worry, it’s still there. There might not be any cameos from Stan Lee, but nerds and geeks (myself included) will be more than happy with Hooper X’s (Dwight Ewell) condemnation of Return of the Jedi as pure white fantasy. But for those of you hoping Smith would grow up just a little and deliver a film with some actual pathos, he did just that.
Rated 5 out of 5
