Where the f*ck was Amy?

Greetings, fellow Lit and Media scholars! This week I played a producer, took a look at Chasing Amy's screenplay, and ripped it to shreds. How exciting! I tried to give as much direction to the tone and build up as possible but I did go off to some rants here and there (mostly at the end). Nevertheless, please enjoy another opinionated literature:   

This story’s theme is either surprises or deceiving the audience. At first, I saw this as a story about two artists, Holden and Banky, and their struggling lives with Holden as the major focus of the two. However, it became a love story when he eventually meets and falls in love with a woman (Alyssa) who turns out to be a lesbian (or bisexual?). After the reveal of Alyssa, the film quickly jumps into serious LGBT discussions between these three characters with Alyssa as the median to explain to Holden and Banky that “gender standards” is not necessarily a solid way of living. In a way, this is very consistent as a whole because the twists and turns are the fun parts of a chase (Chasing Amy—get it?).   

Set in New Jersey (or at least the Tri-state areas), the atmosphere of the film feels like a slice of life movie. Settings from this script range from a typical bar scene to swing sets in a park to generate a “small town feel”—highly recommend Middle to South New Jersey. Music accompaniment to their scenes could be something complementing but not too overbearing on the characters—heavy metal for Alyssa and jazz for Holden, maybe? 

There are hardly any action but the dialogues are heavy in each scene. Perhaps a shot-reverse-shot is not recommended when filming because repetitive composition could destroy the mood and the character development of the scene. There are a lot of sexual scenes in in this film, some of which are flashbacks; highly recommend using very unique compositions to frame the character’s dialogue or act out the scenes that the characters recall.

Rain is the ultimate deux ex machine for drama; if you need an audience to cry buckets make the skies cry too. However, I failed to cry of sadness (or happiness) at this scene, rather I’m angry and frustrated. I had thought the script would begin it’s descending climax here, with Alyssa rejecting Holden’s confession and stick to her morals that she preached throughout the film. But no, she gave him a chance of a relationship thereby tossing everything she stood for in the first and second act out of the window

In retrospect, this probably would have gone with the motif of the film: surprises and deception but to me it was a road to predictable failure. And I was right!  From the moment Alyssa and Holden met each other it was obvious that their relationship (platonic or otherwise) was doomed to fail: he is insecure and wants everything to have a concrete affirmation while she is confident and would like an undefined view of the world. The two cannot be more polar opposites—and no, opposites rarely attracts, especially with this big of a gap.

If I were watching this film, I would have left at the confession scene, which is ashamed because the movie’s title is explained several scenes later. The “Chasing Amy” explanation has a lot of dialogue too; perhaps some visuals here? Or at least have clever framing if the budget is low.

The ending is bittersweet but well deserved. Still questioning why Alyssa gave up her values in the first place but at least she snapped out of it and returned to being Alyssa in the end.