Taped this on Friday night as it’s a film I’ve been meaning to watch for some time but never got round to it. I wasn’t even aware of the fact that Kevin Smith (a.k.a Silent Bob) directed it until he appeared in his recognizable attire of long hair and back-to-front baseball cap.

But Silent Bob was not a main character. Neither was Matt Damon who appeared on screen for approx. 55 seconds. The plot concerns Ben Affleck predictably falling in love with Alyssa Jones (Joey Lauren Adams) and experiencing problems with his best friend (Jason Lee) because of it.

The first half of the film feels very predictable. She’s a lesbian, he’s going to fall in love with her anyway, she’ll choose him over her gorgeous girlfriends (‘coz everyone needs “deep dicking”, right? – as Affleck attests with a wink) and they live happily ever after. One thing that wasn’t predictable was JL Adams’ voice. She sounds like Meg Tilly on helium. On the IMDB her personal quote is:

“It’s not a normal voice. It doesn’t fit into people’s preconceptions about what a woman’s voice should sound like. My mom doesn’t think I have an unusual voice, though. I’m sure it’s helped me get some roles. But ‘Chasing Amy’, I almost didn’t get. There was concern the voice would grate on some people — which some critics said it did.”

Well, she’s honest, I’ll give her that, but unfortunately the voice grated on me too. Perhaps the fact that she was dating Kevin Smith during (before?) the filming of ‘Chasing Amy’ helped her get the part after all.

But let’s move on. There’s a lot about lesbians in this movie (Guinevere Turner also appears briefly as token New York lesbian). Smith did a relatively good job at exploring the “can lesbians really fuck?” issue, but the casting of the lesbians at the Meow Mix club in New York and later at Alyssa’s apartment grated on me even more than her voice. They were such ham actors. In fact, I would bet they weren’t actors at all but ‘genuine’ amateur lesbians. The disgust on their faces when Alyssa admits that she’s now dating a man is so over-done… it makes them out to be man-hating, narrow-minded carbon copies of homophobes which is so seventies-feminist!

Jason Lee is now a favourite of mine since his performance in the scene at the Meow Mix club. He exchanges ‘muff diving’ stories (and scars!) with JL Adams and finally leaves, asking her: “If you’re so into girls, do you stare at your body in the mirror all day?”

Rating: ***