Chasing Chasing Amy
Written & Directed by Sav Rodgers
Runtime: 1 hour and 32 minutes
Theatrical premiere on June 8th at the Tribeca Film Festival, playing through Tribeca At Home from June 19th-July 2nd

by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

Sav Rodgers and I have something very specific in common (though I’d venture to say we likely have more than just the one thing). We both love Kevin Smith’s third film, Chasing Amy. We both connected with this film because it helped us come to terms with our sexualities. Chasing Amy remains my favorite film of all time. Many have come and gone, but I refuse to let this one go for a myriad of reasons. It would seem that Rodgers felt the same, though, and Chasing Chasing Amy is a labor of love, dedication, and endurance.

It’s a film that has its origins in an at-home video player, being watched daily for a month. (I, notably, did that with Smith’s fourth film, Dogma in 2005.) It’s a film that gets its first jumping off point because Rodgers did a TED Talk about Chasing Amy. It’s a film that exists because Kevin Smith and company are generous with their time and are genuinely interested and happy that a film they made so young can still be impactful to someone, almost 30 years later.

Made with a lot of care and heart, Chasing Chasing Amy is a hyper specific film that I imagine has quite a niche audience, but they’ll be loud and proud and happy for it to exist. I should know, I’m the target demographic, and I’m in love with the journey Rodgers takes over the tight hour and a half runtime. Making a documentary is hard. You enter with an idea and sometimes the film conforms to that idea… but usually it won’t. Along with editor Sharika Ajaikumar, Sav Rodgers is able to make something not just cohesive, but deeply heartfelt and emotionally affecting.

Something I find really great about the editorial choices made in the documentary are the one-on-one interviews that Rodgers has with Chasing Amy star Joey Lauren Adams and with Go Fish co-writer Guinevere Turner. Turner’s interview is featured in bits as she talks about coming up with Smith at Sundance (where Go Fish and Clerks. both premiered) and how her relationship with Smith’s producer Scott Mosier really informed the base of Alyssa and Holden’s pre-romantic connection. It’s a really important part of the story of how Chasing Amy began to form. However, it’s the choice to come back to Turner, in tandem with the Adams solo interview, where I think the film really shines in refusing to hide or obfuscate the ways in which Smith’s career (and the success of that career) has left many women in his life out at sea without a raft.

Leading into the solo interview with Adams, there’s a lot of conversation about Harvey Weinstein—much more than I’d actually anticipated. He, along with his brother Bob Weinstein, created Miramax. It’s a company known for many things, but among them is that the Weinstein brothers truly began Kevin Smith’s career when they purchased Clerks at Sundance in 1994.

Now, I don’t actually doubt that Smith didn’t know, especially not the full extent, of the horror of Weinstein. Mostly because it wasn’t important for him to know, see, and be present with the women in his life both intimately and tangentially. Joey Laruen Adams recounts the time of Chasing Amy with Harvey Weinstein, and her account is a first-person horror story. Kevin Smith recounts the same time period, and it’s just something he didn’t notice was happening in the background.

It makes sense to me that this interview marks a division in how Rodgers was processing the creation of the documentary and the important role that Chasing Amy had played in his life. Obviously, the Weinstein conversation is exactly what it is, but the other half of this gut punch of an interview in how Adams talks about her relationship with Smith at the time of the filming. It’s very clear that Smith worked through whatever he needed to work through to get to this better place in his insecurities, but, as Adams says, that’s his truth. It wasn’t hers. He was Holden, but she wasn’t actually Alyssa.

Similarly, Turner talks about the feeling of seeing conversations and pieces of her community reflected back at her in a film, written and directed by a straight man, that was much better received than Go Fish, a film written and directed by lesbian women. He was able to skyrocket to success in a way that Turner wasn’t allowed, despite her deep influence on his work. Which isn’t to say that Turner hasn’t had a great career, but it’s painful to be so young and early in your career and feel like your authentic self isn’t enough.

And there’s a lot of talk of authentic representation surrounding Chasing Amy in the documentary. People are still scornful of this problematic film—which I find so intensely interesting. Obviously, there’s always going to be a conversation to be had about stories about marginalized communities, and who gets to tell them. It should be no surprise that I fall on the “should be the people they’re about” side of the argument. (Though, notably, I’m also on the “don’t force people out in order to prove their story is authentic,” because that’s shitty and not actually helpful!)

However, there are two things I find fascinating about the enduring conversation about Chasing Amy. One is, as video essayist Princess Weekes noted, how Chasing Amy accidentally ends up talking about biphobia. It becomes this perfect petri dish within the film, but also outside of the film—from both monosexual sides of the aisle. The other is the nuance of sexuality that has, actually, always been present in queer spaces but is currently having a much more public bout with discourse. It should be noted that these two things are, of course, in conversation with each other. I do wish that some of the people being interviewed were less rigid in their critique of Alyssa’s sexuality, given those things. Though, I also understand that her being written by a straight guy in the ‘90s doesn’t actually give it a lot of grace and space for the nuance it might get if a queer person had written it—even if it was just as messy.

But, actually, it doesn’t matter. If you see Alyssa as a polysexual person, as someone created when bisexual and pansexual weren’t as widely known and discussed, then you’re correct. If you see Alyssa as a lesbian who sometimes dates men, then you’re correct. What Chasing Chasing Amy puts into perspective is that life and love are complicated, fluid, and often defy labels. All of our stories are complicated and messy. They’re often painful and unresolved from both sides—but they’re beautiful and meaningful. And maybe we don’t need a painting of birds bought at a dinner to remind us of it, but sometimes we need something to remember that we got to where we are on our own terms.