Continuing from
yesterday's post, I'll continue to dissect this crazy little thing called love with a distinctly different movie than the 1942 classic
Casablanca: Kevin Smith's
Chasing Amy. It's your typical boy-meets-girl, boy-falls-in-love, boy-finds-out-that-girl-is-gay, boy-professes-love-anyway, girl-falls-in-love-with-boy-anyway, boy-finds-out-he-isn't-girl's-first-heterosexual-experience, boy-can't-deal-with-his-exlesbian-girlfriend-having-slept-with-other-men, boy-says-multiple-hurtful-things, boy-forgets-that-he-loves-girl-for-her-personality-and-not-her-sexual-history, boy-ruins-relationship-with-soulmate story.
In every relationship (well, every relationship that ends), there are five distinct parts: the courtship phase, the newlywed phase, the long haul, the beginning of the end, and the breakup. What I like about
CA is the fact that Smith really doesn't glorify most of these scenes. Granted, the whole idea of a lesbian falling in love with a man might be a little outlandish (for any guy but me, anyway). I'll admit that. But Smith's description of the emotional transitions that each character goes through really takes you through the trials that guys and gals experience during a relationship.
When Holden (Ben Affleck) and Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) first meet, Holden breaks out cheesy line after cheesy line, and most of them flop horribly. For any guy who's ever tried to win over a girl without booze or rohypnol, this is a situation that is disturbing familiar. Even when you think that she might be sort of into you, trying to carry on a conversation with a girl you're trying to win over is nearly impossible because a) guys are idiots, b) girls are
insane, c) you're second guessing everything you're saying to make sure that you're not coming across as an idiot, and d) the girl (she's crazy, remember) is probably trying to act like she's not as interested as she is.
Once their relationship starts, their romance (like most) becomes all-consuming; they're making out all the time, they're forgoing time with everyone else to be with each other... they pretty much forget that the outside world exists. Now, I'm not one to rip into wanting to spend a lot of time with a significant other, and I'm definitely not about to say that having sex all the time is a bad thing. And while I'm sure Kevin Smith isn't a "love-hater", he doesn't hesitate to display the strain that their engrossing relationship has on their outside friendships. Alyssa's close knit circle of friends and co-workers begin to show visible annoyance when she starts hanging out with them less and less (as well as the fact that she's no longer playing for Team Lesbian). Holden's roommate, comic book co-creator and best friend Banky (Jason Lee) even goes so far as to say that their friendship is seriously at risk because of the nonstop attention that he's giving his new girlfriend.
Banky: Everybody has an agenda. Everyone.Holden: Yourself?Banky: My agenda is to watch your back.Holden: To what end?Banky: To insure that all this time we've spent together, building something, wasn't wasted.Holden: She's not going to ruin the comic.Banky: I wasn't talking about the comic.Because Kevin Smith is like me and doesn't appreciate 3-hour long movies, we don't catch a lot of the "long haul"-phase of their relationship, but we can pretty much assume that's it the same as the newlywed phase, but toned down a bit. Which leads us to... the beginning of the end. Depending on the people involved, this can happen in a variety of ways; one of the relationshipeers (I make up words... so what?) might start to feel inadequate, underappreciated, smothered, or one probably a million other reasons. In
CA, the relationship begins to unravel when our hero comes upon a rumor that his "untouched by another man" girl has indeed experimented with heterosexuality in her younger years.
Some people might have found my
Casablanca questioning of love and romance overly skewed towards making women the antagonists in relationships. Well, I stand by that opinion, because those are the feelings that dynamics of Rick and Ilsa elicited in me. And now, with
Chasing Amy, I'm ready to admit that the demise of the primary relationship in this movie was caused primarily by the guy. When Holden finds out that he isn't the first man to have sex with Alyssa, he starts freaking out, yelling at her, calling her a "whore"; he's out for blood with this breakup. His irrational ranting and raving at her has nothing to do with their current relationship; it's merely a weird and bizarre insecurity inside himself that's made him erupt with an inordinate amount of intense passion. A level of passion which, at the beginning of their relationship, he had used to love her with.
The reason that this breakup scene hurts so much is that, over the course of the movie, Smith shows how well Alyssa and Holden are together. He doesn't just make up some cheesy "love at first sight" garbage, and then force the audience to trust him that they're kindred spirits. He shows them discussing their similar interests. He shows their playful banter with each other. He shows their ability to make fun of each other in a lighthearted way. And then, once they hook up, you see not just that they're intensely attracted to each other physically, but that they genuinely feel more complete when they're together and are in one another's arms.
So... what's the moral of this story? That quality relationships are so hard to come by that the only place a guy can find a quality girlfriend is in the lesbian community? Probably not; I think, in that sense, Smith's just trying to say that finding that you never know where you might find that perfect person... whether its at a comic book convention, Jimmy Buffet concert, at a Fourth of July party, or just walking across a bridge with a corned beef sandwich at 1am. Is the moral that guys are inherently insecure beings who need their egos padded constantly? That's definitely possible, because guys are idiots and as much as we want to be seen as tough guys, it's only to make girls want to be protected by us (if that makes any sense at all).
But I think the main thing that Kevin Smith is trying to say with this movie is that relationships are difficult; as great and happy and comfortable as your partner might make you feel, it still takes a lot of work to keep a relationship healthy and strong. There'll probably be times when one of the partners might not visibly show as much affection as he (i mean, err...
he or she) did during the courtship and newlywed phases of the relationship; he (or she) has to remember that although he (or she) might still feel the same way, he (or she) has to work at showing that he (or she) feels the same way. There might be a time when one of the partners feels that she (or he) isn't getting to spend enough time with the other; she (or he) should remember that although her (or his) partner may love her (or him) more than anyone else in the world, the two of them are still individuals, and that the "individual" version of the partner is the person that she initially fell in love with.
Two love analyses, two broken relationships... this is no good.
Stay tuned for Part III, boys and girls... hopefully I can find something good to say about relationships...-Editor's Note: This sequence of epistles on love is being indefinitely suspended due to... um... not really wanting to do it anymore. However, I will pick it up again if I get positive feedback on the first two entries or an overwhelming bunch of requests for a continuation. Mahalo.
