Review of Chasing Chasing Amy,

I’m kind of an old queer, so I remember when Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy came out and to have watched how the way it was talked about, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, has evolved over the years.  So I was very interested to check out Sav Rodgers’ new documentary Chasing Chasing Amy.   That examines its evolution and what that movie means in today’s media world.
Sav Rodgers is a filmmaker who came to prominence after his 2018 TED talk, The Rom-Com that Saved My Life. The talk details how Sav faced a difficult time growing up. The only real exposure he had to characters that were not straight was Chasing Amy, and he watched it every day, which gave him the strength to keep going.
The movie is a fascinating watch for me. It had a couple of things going for it. There was the nostalgia I remember when  Chasing Amy came out and I loved a lot of it.  It was filled with comic book references and had excellent writing, and I loved that Amy was unapologetic about her past. But as the years passed, it became very clear how it was the story of a white cis-guy learning lessons.   I mean, in the 90’s, just the idea of a movie that had a non-straight as one of the central characters felt groundbreaking.  Luckily, now we have more representation made by and for the community.  
Sav Rodgers is the writer, director and star of the Chasing Chasing Amy, though at times it feels like he is overshadowed by Kevin Smith.  The good news about Kevin’s involvement is that he has access to a lot of people who were involved in the making of the movie, and the film contains interviews with Scott Mosier, Jason Lee,  and  Shana Lorry, who were all there when the film was being made.  They provide a lot of insight and stories about what it was like behind the scenes.  Sav also speaks with a lot of queer creators and media critics who provide a great overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the original film.  All of this is intercut with the story of Sav growing up and his relationship with his partner Riley to ground the documentary and make it feel very intimate and personal.   
The thing that I found most interesting is that you can watch Sav grow more into himself as a person and creator.  At the beginning of the documentary, he seems a little like a kid in a candy store, just happy to be hanging out with all these people who had been powerful forces in his life. Still, there is a shift during his interview with Joey Lauren Adams (the Amy of Chasing Amy).    She speaks powerfully about how everyone’s story of an experience is not the same.  Kevin Smith talks about how the movie was cathartic for him as he was dealing with many of the same issues that the main character, Holden, was in the film.  The fact that he had felt eclipsed by the experiences of his partner. The problem is that that partner was Joey Lauren Adams, so the movie tells the story of a very painful part of her life. She acknowledges that Sav can have his relationship with the movie, but that is not hers.  This moment seemed to break the para-social nature of the interaction into one where Sav sees her not as the character but as a real human being.   I am not implying that he treated her with disrespect, but it kind of changed from feel-good nostalgia into a look at what people have to deal with when a film becomes part of the zeitgeist. 
The movie was a great watch and is available pretty much anywhere you can buy or rent films. I think it should be a must-watch if you are from my generation or just want an honest look back at how far things have come in representation.