‘Chasing Chasing Amy’ Review: Sav Rodgers’ Engaging Doc Tackles Kevin Smith’s “Problematic” Romcom – Tribeca Film Festival
deadline.com“Do you understand why I love this movie so much?” asks Sav Rodgers, the director whose adoration of Kevin Smith’s 1997 romcom Chasing Amy has led them on a pilgrimage to parts of New Jersey so ungentrified that, 25 years later, they’re — seriously — almost all still there. “No,” says Shana Lory.
Which is a bit of a shock, given that she was the casting director. Though it set out to be a love letter, Rodgers’ never less than engaging film was always facing an uphill struggle, and it’s to their credit — to prevent spoilers, they/them pronouns will be used here just for the purposes of this review — that they’re even prepared to debate such “problematic” material at a time when pop culture is cheering on the cancellation of major artists such as Pablo Picasso by people with less gravitas than the UK’s Princess of Wales, who at least can say she has an MA in the field.
To be clear, there has been no revisionism around Chasing Amy; much of what is said about it now was said about it then: in the world of comic books, a straight, white man (Ben Affleck’s Holden) falls for a lesbian (Joey Lauren Adams’ Alyssa), and they enter into an on-off relationship.
That sort of didn’t fly then, and it sort of doesn’t fly now — and it’s this sort of that forms the backbone of Rodgers’ film.
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