Chasing Amy, starring, written and directed by Kevin Smith Nine out of 10

 Chasing Amy, starring, written and directed by Kevin Smith

Nine out of 10

This is remarkable, amusing, provocative romantic comedy that has quite a few scenes, developments that could make for some uneasy moments for the audience and if a viewer were conservative, evangelical or fundamentalist in any other way, he or she would hate it.

Ben Affleck is mostly very good in the leading role of Holden McNeil, although there are points where he can seem wooden, artificial, and inappropriate perhaps, but overall, this is such an extraordinary production that we can pass by that.

The main character is a comic book author, rather successful together with his best friend, Banky Edwards aka the excellent Jason Lee, a personage that has some disputes, early and then later in the motion picture, with those who accuse him of just copying the material that his fiend had created.

These friends seem to have a great time together, albeit the subconscious of Banky might be entertaining a different version of reality, while he makes many “dick jokes” and manifests as a homophobe, there is another subtle, deeper version of him that is the opposite of what this young man projects.

They meet the stupendous, flamboyant, courageous, flaunting Alyssa Jones, portrayed with talent, aplomb, ardor by Joey Lauren Adams, winner of prizes for this role and nominated for a golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for her outstanding work.

Alyssa is called to sing on stage and she does a tremendous job, with lyrics that speak of attraction and love, while looking towards the place where Holden, who had just met and talked to her, sits.

Alas, the shock is that when the performer calls for the person she had just sung about, the want she wants so much, she refers not our hero, who was so elated, enthused and proud of this conquest, but the woman who had been standing next to him all this time.

Next, four people sit at the same table, where the sensuous Alyssa is kissing her companion, talking about the coming night of pleasure, while Holden is sulking and his friend, intrigued, titillated, curious, keeps asking questions and provoking this lesbian woman.

He is puzzled, overwhelmed actually by the fact that she is so free, open about her sexuality and then they compare notes so to say, speaking about accidents that had happened and had left marks on their bodies – in one instance, the woman, who was just a teenager at the time, was drunk and having sex – eating the pussy – with a partner, when she fell asleep and the other girl kicked her so hard that the sign is still on her chest.

Another event, took place when she was doing the same thing, kneeling on the ground while the other was inside a car, where she kicked the park brake and the car started moving down the hill, cutting seriously into the leg of the hanging lover.

Banky has his own stories, mentioning just one, wherein he has changed his cunnilingus tactics and his girlfriend is so enthused that she grasps his ears and he cannot hear anymore, thus, when her father unexpectedly returns home, he is unaware and the man pulls him by the hair so hard that the poor character cannot move his head from one point on.

Holden and Alyssa become good friends, going out and talking about their past, experiences and debating on various issues, including the question of sex between women, how that means for the man that his interlocutor is still a virgin, since she says she does not use strap-ons…

There are some exchanges that, although they are colorful, interesting, enticing for some audiences, the aforementioned Taliban public would label as inspired by Satan, condemnable and so on, like the moment when the lesbian pulls out her tongue to prove that this is not a small organ, to be dismissed as an inappropriate instrument in penetration.

Alyssa claims she has had no coitus with a man, but she is no longer a virgin, for apart from the tongue, she explains with gestures, showing the orifice in question, then one and a few fingers entering it, to the dismay of the man, who has to be told: look, we are conceived to let a whole baby go through that.

One night, after they have become such excellent platonic friends, Holden stops the car, declares his absolute love for her, which she reciprocates after a few minutes of fight over it, with a spectacular period of enchanting paradise ensuing, until Banky hears some gossip about the teenage Alyssa having intercourse with two men at the same time.

In the first place, our modern Romeo dismisses the accusations, then becomes haunted by them and confronts his lover at a hockey match, where she unexpectedly confirms the gossip, stands up to the man who knew she had slept with “half the women of New York” and had no problem with that, but once he learns about one experiment is ready to deny her.

There is more to say about this out of the box script, where some rather extreme situations are explored, with the main point made by the heroine that she has been in a family where she has not been given a map, she has been looking for love – perhaps in the sense explained by Plato, with the metaphor of the separated halves of the same sphere, which keep looking for each other.

She says that she has decided not to exclude one half of the population, meaning women, has been a lesbian for most of her life, but has met Holden, who is everything she has ever wanted, but she had not known it, so she has tried everything, including the ménage a trois that her lover is so horrified by.

The name and the significance of the film are given by Silent Bob played by the writer- director of the film, who tells his own tale of the perfect woman, called Amy that tells him her history and then he rejects her, even if he would realize that she was the girl for him, the other half of the perfect sphere.

Chasing Amy is a wonderful feature.