As a long time fan of filmmaker Kevin Smith, I was eager to see yet another documentary about his work and this time about my personal favourite of his, CHASING AMY, which was somewhat of a reaction to the failure of his sophomore feature MALLRATS and a bounce-back to his indie rooms at that time. Oh, how things have changed. The documentary CHASING CHASING AMY has a slightly different idea in mind.
ABOUT: Sav Rodgers sets out to examine the complex legacy of Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy on LGBTQ+ people and its life-saving impact on Rodgers, himself, who came into his queerness via kinship with the film. He makes significant progress, garnering support from Kevin Smith; but, as the production continues, Rodgers is faced with unexpected truths that change his relationship with the film and himself.
Reaction: I am a long time fan of Kevin Smith and while I haven’t been the biggest fan of his overall resume, his 1997 Indie sensation CHASING AMY had a pretty huge impact on me as a fan of cinema at that time. When I first saw it, I was still coming off of the reaction of Smith’s CLERKS (which I had not seen until a few years later) and the bizarre follow up of MALLRATS and really curious where he would go next. That his tone for CHASING AMY called back more to CLERKS was very impressive and even going back to a smaller budget showed that he was trying for something much better.
This new documentary CHASING CHASING AMY is somewhat of a mixed bag for me even though the setup is interesting. The doc comes, in a bit of frustration, way too much from the perspective from filmmaker Sav Rodgers who was deeply affected by the movie so many years ago. This of course can be a good narrative for the doc, but CHASING CHASING AMY is a little too rough in balancing the anecdotes about the movie along with how it affected his personal relationship with his girlfriend, which makes the doc falter especially towards the end.
One thing I did like, however, is the different perspectives of how CHASING AMY and how it did affect groups and communities along with the involved filmmakers. There’s a great story about producer Scott Mosier and gay filmmaker Guinevere Turner that I didn’t know about, and itself could make a good documentary. Later, there’s a very affecting interview with Joey Lauren Adams where it not only shows her perspective but unleashes a lot of her past with the industry and with Kevin. This is a true highlight of the documentary that is sadly diminished a bit more as it keeps cutting back to the documentary’s director.
That brings it back to the major problem with the documentary, that Sav this “me me me” mentality throws the doc into a tailspin that it doesn’t recover from. It’s a tough thing to balance. With that said, the overall presentation is very slight and more made for a streaming service or even a YouTube type documentary than a theatrical release.
