Chasing Amy

"It's not who you love. It's how."

1997 1h 54m EN

👍

6.7

SOLID

★6.7TMDB · 1,612

ComedyDramaRomance

Synopsis

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Holden and Banky are comic book artists. Everything is going good for them until they meet Alyssa, also a comic book artist. Holden falls for her, but his hopes are crushed when he finds out she's a lesbian.

“It's not who you love. It's how.”

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Where to watch · US

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Cast

Ben Affleck
Holden McNeil
Joey Lauren Adams
Alyssa Jones
Jason Lee
Banky Edwards
King Mustafa Obafemi
Hooper LaMont
Jason Mewes
Jay
Kevin Smith
Silent Bob
Ethan Suplee
Fan
Scott Mosier
Collector

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Kevin Smith
Writers: Kevin Smith
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.3M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Grossed $12M — a 48.1× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

29 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Kevin Smith, shot by David Klein. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by David Pirner. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Kevin Smith shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "It's not who you love. It's how.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Kevin Smith directs. David Klein behind the camera. David Pirner scores. Kevin Smith cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Shot for just $0.3M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
2Grossed $12M — a 48.1× return. The kind of profit studios chase for a decade.
329 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Directed by Kevin Smith, shot by David Klein. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by David Pirner. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Kevin Smith shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "It's not who you love. It's how.".
9IMDB entry: tt0118842 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 12 themes, including "coming out", "new jersey", "love of one's life", "bisexuality".

The technical file

Cinematography: David Klein
Original score: David Pirner
Editing: Kevin Smith
Production design: Robert Holtzman
Costume design: Christopher Del Coro
Makeup / hair: Jane Choi
Runtime: 114 min · 1h 54m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $250,000
Box office: $12,021,272
Return: 4809% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: Chasing Amy (1997)

Awards

Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male
Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Kevin Smith

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Andre Gonzales2023-05-07
★ 5/10
Pretty dumb movie. I was expecting this moving to be funny. It wasn't. This moving is very boring. Nothing exciting or interesting about it.
Filipe Manuel Neto2024-03-13
★ 5/10
A somewhat one-dimensional comedy that is based on uncomfortable dialogues and situations. I didn't really know what I was going to find when I sat down to watch this film, directed and written by Kevin Smith (who also appears in the film, in a minor role, his famous “Silent Bob”), who we know best for his participation in the “Clerks” movies. When I finished, I felt moderately satisfied, even though I consider the film forgettable. The plot is based on an unlikely romance between two very different people: Holden is a comic book artist who lives and works with his best friend, Banky. Being a conservative and conventional man, he is confused when he falls in love with Alyssa, a liberal and sexually experienced woman, who says she is a lesbian, but who does not give up having sex with men when she feels like it. The romance will cause mutual discomfort and will lead Banky to try to “protect” Holden from that woman, who is so different from them. Creating a romantic comedy in which a conventional and conservative man gets involved with a clearly more liberal and experienced woman is a good idea, but the film stops there and doesn't go much further than the tension created around it. The characters are poorly developed and are limited to “symbolizing” incompatible ways of experiencing sexuality. We never know more about them and their motivations or thoughts, and the film is not very effective in the way it tries to create comical situations around this. Thinking about the subject, I believe that the funniest dialogues are those of Banky, who shows from an early age that his character is spontaneous and prone to saying things that shouldn't be said. With a poorly developed script, situations whose joke never exceeds the average and production values that also do not surprise or exceed the “standard”, the strongest point of this film ends up being, in my opinion, the work of the main cast, in particular Ben Affleck, Jason Lee and Joey Lauren Adams. Affleck, especially, is superb in the way he brings his character to life. One could hardly give more strength and credibility to that character. Lee is equally good, in that he can be funny, even if he is one-dimensional. Joey Adams does a very good job, and it's strange to see how this film didn't contribute much to the growth of his career.