Joey Lauren Adams, Sav Rodgers, and Kevin Smith in Chasing Chasing Amy.
Even the most revolutionary movies eventually fall behind the times—what once had seemed bold and daring now feels ill-conceived or problematic when judged against today’s social mores. Few films have felt this effect more than Kevin Smith’s 1997 film Chasing Amy, which tells the story of a man named Holden (Ben Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian named Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) and (spoiler!) wins her heart eventually anyway, at least for a time. The movie was hailed as an audacious and innovative triumph upon its release for its sharp dialogue and cast of richly realized gay characters, but the consensus has shifted and now it’s mostly regarded as a well-intentioned movie filtered through the lens of its straight cis male writer/director that inadvertently sends the message that lesbians are only lesbians until the right man comes around. And while a part of me loves that movie (well, most of the movie, anyway—more on that later), it’s also hard to say that the people who feel that way are wrong.
Enter Sav Rodgers, a young queer filmmaker who embraces Chasing Amy in all its messiness. As a kid growing up in Kansas, Rodgers was a victim of relentless homophobic bullying. But then, as Rodgers outlines in a 2018 TED talk that serves as the kickoff for this documentary, he stumbled across Chasing Amy during a Ben Affleck movie marathon and his life was changed forever. “The spirit of Chasing Amy kept me alive,” Rodgers says, as he watched it again and again, seeing the accepting world he hoped was waiting out there in, as Rodgers put it, “a movie where the gay and lesbian characters were good. They were intelligent, and funny, and out. They were able to live as their authentic selves.”
The TED talk was intended as a launching pad for Chasing Chasing Amy, a documentary Rodgers planned as an exploration of how a movie could have such a life-saving impact despite all its imperfections. The early parts of the film move along in this regard and at first make it seem like Chasing Chasing Amy will be a typical “talking heads” documentary, as Rodgers interviews dozens of queer film critics, directors, and screenwriters as well as people involved in the original film’s production—some are kinder to the film than others, but all seem kind of baffled by Rodgers’ love for it. (Interestingly—to me, anyway—these conversations explore dozens of Chasing Amy’s shortcomings but not a single one mentions the movie’s ending, which to me is far and away the most problematic part of the whole film. Anyway.) Rodgers also spends time on a pilgrimage of sorts, heading to New Jersey to visit the locations where Chasing Amy was shot as a way to deepen his connection to the film.
If this is all starting to sound like a hagiography in defense of the film, I’m very happy to report that that is not the case. The first shift comes when the TED talk succeeds beyond anyone’s possible expectations, going viral and reaching Kevin Smith himself, who contacted Rodgers and made himself available. Smith is the movie’s biggest cheerleader but also pragmatic about its shortcomings. He reveals the impetus behind the creation of the movie, a blend of two different real world relationships. The first was an unreciprocated crush that Scott Mosier, longtime producer on Kevin Smith’s movies, had for writer/actress Guinevere Turner, whose groundbreaking 1994 lesbian romantic comedy Go Fish debuted at the same Sundance festival as Smith’s first film Clerks did. (Turner has a brief role in Chasing Amy, and is also one of the most insightful and oft-used talking heads in Chasing Chasing Amy.) The second was the relationship between Smith and Adams, who started dating after Adams appeared in Smith’s second film (1995’s much-maligned Mallrats), a relationship hobbled by Smith’s insecurities about how much more adventurous Adams’ life had been prior to their dating. Take a man who loves a lesbian he can’t have, mix him with a guy who gets the girl but whose insecurities prevent him from keeping her, and you’ve got Chasing Amy. That understanding of where the story came from and how personal it was to Smith makes it easy to see why the film is so emotionally affecting. It’s also heartwarming to see how genuinely touched Smith is by talking to Rodgers and learning that this movie that was so personal to Smith, that he made with the best of intentions but then had to spend a quarter century apologizing for, genuinely transformed someone’s life.
Rodgers’ enthusiasm goes a long way in getting people to open up, but you also start to get the feeling like he’s being treated with kid gloves because of his babyface, his backwards baseball cap, his youthful exuberance. But then, Rodgers sits down for a chat with Chasing Amy’s star, Joey Lauren Adams, and it opens up a whole new world. I hesitate to go too deep in summarizing a conversation that absolutely should be seen in its entirety, but in short, Adams opens up about the weird energy she feels from the parasocial connection that Rodgers feels he has with her through the movie, and how difficult it was for her to have basically played a version of herself as written by her ex-boyfriend, describing the reverberations that had through her life and her career and how bittersweet it is for her to have to relive it in conversation. Adams isn’t mean or argumentative, she’s just honest, forthright in a way Rodgers was clearly not prepared for, and Rodgers was smart to leave in many of his own reactions, warts and all. It makes it clear that while he was a literal adult a few years before walking in that room, that conversation is the moment he actually grew up.
This is vital because implicit in the premise of Chasing Chasing Amy is that it’s not just a documentary about a movie, it’s also about Rodgers himself. In the pilgrimage scenes I mentioned earlier, Rodgers is accompanied by Riley, his longtime long-distance girlfriend, and as the movie goes on, we get to watch that relationship blossom and deepen. Through his contact with Smith, he has the courage to come out as a trans man and start living his life more authentically. And through his conversation with Adams, he develops a more mature vision of the world around him.
It’s that personal touch that makes Chasing Chasing Amy so special. As a defense of the original film, as a piece of film criticism, as a story of Chasing Amy’s creation, it excels. But it’s as Rodgers’ personal story, and as a low-key love story backed by an exploration of the profound impact that a movie can have on a person’s life, that it really shines. | Jason Green
Chasing Chasing Amy is now available on various video on-demand services. Watch the trailer below.
