I held up Kevin Smith's movies way too high as a late teen early adult, Chasing Amy being the one film I saw more than once and can never know where to draw the line on the presentation. More recently, particularly after Videogum (may they rest in peace) took to chopping Chasing Amy to pieces in their Hunt for the Worst Movie of All Time series of reviews (the criteria being the films were lauded overall, and particularly meeting the Criterion Collection requirements for release). This movie did get too much praise that it wouldn't get now. When we're talking of time capsules, Chasing Amy really exists in the pre-Woke era of film making where you could make a statement about gay politics and still get away with littering the script with gay slurs, even when the main "hero" rebukes his friend for using said slurs before tripping on his own hypocrisy.
Now, with some distance since my last viewing, I can see that Affleck wasn't that big a giant douche in his performance. That damn speech is somehow seen by romantic guys that were friendzoned wanted to recreate because they believed it would get them the girl. And that's not how any of that shit works. So, unfortunately, it's tainted by male fantasy. I used to think it was pretty epic, like this whole scene was amazing to me as a romantic teen/young adult (I watched a review of it from the TV more before I actually saw the movie). It's so overwrought that watching it now, with all the goddamn screaming from Alyssa, (sorry, it's ridiculous*), it's hard to take that fucking seriously.
I don't like Mallrats, I own it as a double set with Reality Bites, which is sooooo much worse than I remember. I kinda want to watch Clerks right now to see if it does live up to my bullshit, immature praise. Holden is a self-insert of Smith, he won't deny that but yeah, mix it up a little. Banky's observations are really pathetic and dour because he's unable to cope with fluid sexuality, because nobody could cope with that because Hollywood was all, that doesn't exist.
Jason Lee's not a bad actor. Affleck isn't the worst. Joey Lauren Adams deserves SO much more. Her dialogue would be taken through a wringer and spat out with more consideration for how women (not just lesbians) think/feel/say. That's all most people would want. I don't think you could rewrite this in a modern frame and have it make sense, since Gen Xers were more tribal than today's youth, who are cooler with you just loving who you want. So Alyssa's bi (I'd extend that to pan because she's more about being with the person ultimately) and that's no big deal, she's progressive and stuck in a largely conservative landscape that's not ready to open up to different ideals. So it absolutely sucks when she makes her eloquent speech to Holden, and has her wonderful moment of declaring her love, and he has to shit on it by making a joke about needing a serious deep dicking (as a callback to Banky's bullshit argument that a woman gives him a side-eye over, because we're not SUPPOSED TO AGREE WITH IT). We're not allowed to take it seriously.
Truth is, Alyssa would be trashed for her thin late 90s eyebrows before the Pink Posse came at her for wanting a man. (I like I'm a big fan of barely existent brows and apparently this is a mortal sin. They look a little thicker at the end, the kind I like but for some reason can't get). It really sucks you can't have this loved-up couple beat the odds, but it's not society's fault, it's fuckin' Holden's. He's a manbaby. And to be honest, Alyssa's got some evolving to do as well, but she's ultimately the adult and she rightfully walks. Adams said in her interview she goes through less of an arc than Banky and Holden, because it is about their friendship, while Alyssa remains who she is while she's still willing to be with Holden, ultimately she's not gone straight for him, she's just agreed to be with him. And that just doesn't compute with people, least it didn't back then.
And that made me sad as a kid. I wanted to think Holden got his head out of his ass and won her back, because he ruins his whole life over this. It's hinted he's hoping for something by giving her the comic, it's a nice gesture but the reality is, it still wouldn't work. Alyssa's with someone who "doesn't get her" but while Holden's grown up a bit and figured it out, there's a kind of a maybe moment, but apparently Holden's all alone by Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Yeah, this wasn't a love letter to the gays.
The script is misogynistic and homophobic while trying to be progressive. It's faux-liberal. I don't know if Smith is a good guy or not. His scripts were 90% dialogue driven, he's not an action director and they gave him a Die Hard movie... It didn't fix anything for the LGBTQ+ community. No more than Queer as Folk did. Hooper's (the black, gay comic book artist living as a minority in the minority of the minority) there to lay out some truths while being comically racist toward white guys because that is funny, I personally don't get offended by that, it only bothers me when people refer to it as "reverse racism" like it's only racism in the context of bigotry towards black people**. His suggestion Holden deal with it doesn't lead to a mature outcome (the hockey rink argument was supposed to be in a kitchen but it is admittedly more interesting in this context until it all blows up in front of people for yucks). It's where Holden and Alyssa both become insufferable and you're like, this needs to end. Because they're just going to be screaming like crazy people in parking lots forever if they don't break up. How the hell did she not lose her voice?? She got two scenes of hysterical screaming. I think some of it could've been delivered coldly. Like it would've been so much more "fuck you" if she'd just laid it out in quiet anger then built up to screaming. I guess she does by the final scene where she officially breaks it off (which is fantastic). It's better at that moment.
All this really is about is Smith dealing with his own insecurities that fucked up his relationship with Adams. Like take your normal couple bullshit back to the burbs. Nobody is in a normal anything anymore.
End of the day, Affleck has such a douchey haircut/goatee it's impossible to fathom a lesbian falling for him. But Silent Bob ironically breaking his silence is a pretty decent scene. It still works in the frame of the film, nevertheless Holden still misses the point. (Interestingly, the music in this scene is a little in the Hal Hartley vein, the simplicity of the shot and the back and forth is very Hal, too). He doesn't really defend her shit against Banky, he's too patient with Banky and too insistent with Alyssa. It's good he doesn't get his way because he's so fucking stupid. He can't dissect and differentiate between a love of a friend and a love of a romantic partner. The egotism is gross. I'd totally light up a smoke if I was presented with the same batshit solution Holden devises. Hell, for a second Alyssa looks like she wants to put it out in his eye, and damn, I kinda wish she did.
But I don't hate this movie. I should. I don't think I'll watch it again. But my opinions are based on a much more mature brain than the one that viewed it 20 years ago.
*There's about the same amount of shrill bullshit relationship screaming in Clerks. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Smith was a fuckin' drama queen.
Oh and there's a nod to Revenge of the Nerds and the whole "whoops she slept with the wrong guy, that's not at all rape". And Jay quotes Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet -"I'll fuck anything that moves."
**I've had to hold myself back from telling someone on Facebook there is a word for "age racism". It's called fucking ageism. Jesus fucking Christ. I hate it just as much when women being sexist to men is called "reverse sexism". I mean it basically proves white men will always set the foundation for language and the general public's comprehension of it.
