Review of Chasing Amy (1997) by Blake P — 03 Feb 2016

"Chasing Amy" witnesses the conceptions and fadings of friendships and intimate relationships with a casual eloquence that seems wise in retrospect. The fourth film of '90s wunderkind Kevin Smith, it is a romantic comedy of the "Good Will Hunting" camp, offhandedly naturalistic and likable, but also cogently perceptive when it comes to the stakes of youthful romance. It's a weeper for the cool kids, to be compared to "Before Sunrise" if it were slightly more saccharine.

In "Chasing Amy," we're introduced to twenty-somethings Holden (Ben Affleck) and Banky (Jason Lee), best friends who have achieved quasi-fame through an artistic partnership that has resulted in comic book series "Bluntman and Chronic." Roommates who watch each other's backs with the dedication of lovers, Banky grows concerned when dream girl Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) appears out of nowhere, ready to steal Holden's heart. A fellow graphic artist, she drinks like one of the boys and has the wit to keep up in any feigned repartee; blond and baby-voiced, it doesn't take long for her to become an object of affection, viewers as smitten with her as Holden is.

Unbeknownst to him, though, Alyssa is a lesbian who doesn't plan on playing for the other team any time soon. The shock of this revelation sends a jolt down the spine of the impressionable Holden, but that doesn't stop him from making the mistake of falling in love with her - he's in for a world of hurt. And yet passion, it seems, is not something that can be instantaneously halted.

"Chasing Amy" surprises in that it does eventually depict a romantic relationship between Holden and Alyssa, but it goes further in the way that it explores the problems that arise because of it; Alyssa is ostracized by her circle of friends, Banky becomes a torrent of eccentric fury, and Holden grows infatuated with Alyssa's past, which might not be as female oriented as he might have earlier thought. The film is an entertaining exploration of modern romance, funny in its schoolboy sex talk one minute and oddly prudent the next. Like anything Altman or Tarantino, it is the kind of movie that finds most of its appeal through its dialogue, which Smith, fortunately, writes with such humorous insight that realism, for once, feels better, warmer, than a trading of Sorkinish zingers.

Smith's young cast has a lot to do with "Chasing Amy's" breezy amiability, too - Affleck, goateed and as piercing as he is delicate, is a male lead of rare emotion; Lee, abrasive and caring, is efficiently angsty, and Dwight Ewell, as Holden and Banky's gay friend who hides his sexuality by acting as a Black Power stereotype in public, provides the film with some of its most hearty laughs. Jason Mewes and Smith show up for a scene as indie favorites Jay and Silent Bob to explain the meaning of the movie's title. But "Chasing Amy" revolves around Adams like an artist obsesses over their muse, in love with the way she looks and talks and thinks and acts. We're as mad about her as Holden is.

Smith has a way with words and a way with selling a modern love story: "Chasing Amy" is one of the best romantic comedies of the 1990s. Just don't expect to find any mainstream mawkishness in its two-hours of verismo.