Chasing Amy (1997) on Netflix
Holden McNeil, a comic book artist, falls for Alyssa Jones, a fellow artist he meets at a convention. He learns she is gay. His best friend Banky Edwards resents her.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/10149,168 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
Holden McNeil and Banky Edwards have been best friends for twenty years and make comics together in New Jersey. At a convention in Manhattan they meet Alyssa Jones, who is working on her own book, Idiosyncratic Routine, and knows Hooper, an activist writer. Holden is attracted to her, and at an East Village bar named the Meow Mix he discovers that she is a lesbian. The two become friends after finding that they grew up in the same part of New Jersey, and Banky, who resents her, is unhappy about it. Their partnership is already strained by a deal to turn their comic into an animated television show, and Holden cannot keep his feelings to himself.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Chasing Amy (1997)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Miramax offered Kevin Smith a $2 million budget on the condition that he cast David Schwimmer, Drew Barrymore and Jon Stewart as the leads; he rejected it and made Chasing Amy for $250,000 with a cast of his own choosing.
- Kevin Smith said the film was inspired by his brother being gay, by his own relationship with star Joey Lauren Adams (they were dating during the making of it), and by producing partner Scott Mosier's unrequited crush on lesbian filmmaker Guinevere Turner.
- A scene where characters trade memories of sexual escapades gone wrong was originally written for Smith's Mallrats and was purposefully built, down to the style of dialogue and the set dressing, to mirror the shark-scar scene between Quint and Hooper in Steven Spielberg's Jaws.
- Dave Pirner wrote the film's incidental music as well as its theme song, "Tube of Wonderful", which plays over the opening credits; the song later reappears in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) and Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), both times introducing Holden McNeil.
- Smith, who admitted he didn't really know much about gay or lesbian culture, had Guinevere Turner look at drafts of the script for her input, and she helped find the location for the bar scenes: the since-closed Meow Mix in downtown Manhattan.
- In 2023, queer filmmaker Sav Rodgers released the documentary Chasing Chasing Amy, which discusses the impact the film had on his life.
