Chasing Amy

Chasing Amy
Directed by	Kevin Smith
Written by	Kevin Smith
Produced by	Scott Mosier Kevin Smith (Uncredited)
Starring	Ben Affleck Joey Lauren Adams Jason Lee Dwight Ewell Jason Mewes
Distributed by	Miramax Films
Release dates	April 4, 1997
Running time	111 min.
Language	English
Budget	$250,000

Chasing Amy is a 1997 romantic comedy about two comic book artists: Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck), a heterosexual male, and Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams), a lesbian. Written and directed by Kevin Smith, it chronicles how they fall in love and the difficulties they face. One of their main obstacles is that Holden's best friend and partner in comics, Banky Edwards, played by Jason Lee, disapproves of the relationship both because he is slightly homophobic and jealous of Alyssa's role in Holden's life.

The movie is notorious for its frank sexual dialogue, and was originally inspired by a brief scene from an early movie by a friend of Smith's, Gwen Turner's Go Fish, wherein one of the lesbian characters imagines her friends passing judgment on her for "selling out" by sleeping with a man. The film won two awards at the 1998 Independent Spirit Awards (Best Screenplay for Smith and Best Supporting Actor for Jason Lee) and Joey Lauren Adams was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical. Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum was the Musical Consultant/Producer on this film and wrote music for it and numerous other Kevin Smith films.

Cast

Actor	Role
Ben Affleck	Holden McNeil
Jason Lee	Banky Edwards
Joey Lauren Adams	Alyssa Jones
Dwight Ewell	Hooper X
Jason Mewes	Jay
Kevin Smith	Silent Bob
Brian O'Halloran	Jim Hicks, Executive #1
Matt Damon	Shawn Oran, Executive #2
Rebecca Waxman	Dalia
Paris Petrick	Tory
Carmen Llywelyn	Kim
Scott Mosier	Collector
Ethan Suplee	Fan

Trivia

• Kevin Smith was dating Joey Lauren Adams while he wrote the script, which was partly inspired by her.
• Walt "the Fanboy" Grover (Walt Flanagan) and Steve-Dave (Bryan Johnson), who were introduced in Mallrats and went on to cameo in Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, appear in a deleted scene as proprietors of a "Comic Toast" store ("Comic Toast" was the name of the comic book shop in Mallrats, outside of which appeared Fanboy and Steve-Dave).
• The Collector who calls Banky a tracer is played by Scott Mosier, a friend of Kevin Smith's and the film's producer. The boy he dissuades asking Banky for an autograph is Casey Affleck, younger brother of the film's star Ben Affleck.
• The "titty cake" shown in the montage was a last second addition to the film. Kevin Smith designed the face of the cake himself.
• During the hockey rink scene, which took place at the Ocean Ice Palace in Brick Township, New Jersey, when Holden is prying for more details about Alyssa's sexual encounter with the character Rick Derris, the man sitting next to them is Ernie O'Donnell, who played Rick Derris in Smith's earlier film Clerks.
• Alyssa (Adams) tells Holden (Affleck) outside the hockey rink that she has had sex with Gwen Turner and Shannon Hamilton, who were played by Joey Lauren Adams and Ben Affleck in Mallrats.
• At one point, Banky mentions having had sex with "Brandi Svenning," adding that her father caught the two in the act. Both Brandi and her father were characters in Mallrats, though neither Claire Forlani (Brandi) nor Michael Rooker (Mr. Svenning) reprised their roles for this movie.
• Originally, Jay and Silent Bob were to not appear in the film. Their images were to only be seen as Bluntman and Chronic. Instead, Silent Bob delivers his longest monologue in any of his movies about the titular Amy.
• In the tenth anniversary Clerks. DVD, Alyssa Jones appeared in what was called "The Lost Scene". This scene details the entire encounter at the wake Dante and Randal attended (since, in Chasing Amy, Alyssa mentions that she has not been back to the New Jersey suburbs since her friend's funeral). Animated in nature, Joey Lauren Adams provided the voice of Alyssa. When Randal spots Alyssa in the feature, he refers to her as "fingercuffs".
• "Dunn and Reddy Home Improvements" is listed as being on the 3rd floor of the bulding that "Bank Holdup Studios" is in. In Clerks., The roofer in the debate about independent contractors in the Death Star says his company is "Done and Ready Home Improvements."
• At one point, Holden mentions The Quick Stop and Alyssa adds that her best friend, Caitlin had sex with a dead guy there (a refrence to Clerks.).

References

• The film's title is mentioned in a line of the song Love Cliche by the Montreal group Bran Van 3000, used to refer to a character who is in love with a girl who reveals herself as bisexual.
• The film shares its title with an Allister song.
• In the MMORPG 'World of Warcraft' there is a quest entitled "Chasing A-Me 01". A-Me is a robotic gorilla.

See also

• New Jersey films

External links

• Chasing Amy at IMDb
• Criterion Collection essay by Kevin Smith