Jersey Girl Review
by Bob Bloom (bob AT bloomink DOT com)March 29th, 2004
JERSEY GIRL (2004) 2 1/2 stars out of 4. Starring Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Raquel Castro, George Carlin, Jennifer Lopez, Mike Starr and Steve Root. Written and directed by Kevin Smith. Rated PG-13. Running time: Approx. 102 mins.
Seeing a Kevin Smith movie is like visiting an amusement park. It's loads of laughs and exciting, but then you go home and get on with your lives.
Not so with his new feature, Jersey Girl. For this movie presents an adult filmmaker behind the camera, a man who -- for the moment -- has left behind Jay
and Silent Bob, most of the scatological and low-brow drug and sexual humor, and wants to tell a story about love and loss.
As the film opens, we meet Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) a high-powered music publicist who falls in love and marries Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez). However, their rosy future together ends tragically when Gertrude dies in childbirth.
The distraught Ollie, carrying the unexpected burden of single parenthood, loses his job when he insults a pack of media journalists at a publicity event.
Now a pariah in the business, Ollie and his baby daughter, Gertie, move back to the New Jersey home of Ollie's dad, Bart (George Carlin). Ollie takes a job
working alongside his dad on the borough's street department.
Smith's simple plot and story is merely a thread to explore the bounds of parental responsibility.
Much to Smith's credit, he does not make Ollie a nice guy. On the surface, true, he's a smoothie and a charmer from all his years in the p.r. business.
But underneath he seethes with resentment and frustration because he is constantly rebuffed when trying to re-enter the arena he lost through his outburst.
Which brings us to Affleck's performance. As the charming Ollie, Affleck displays the charisma that served him well in his profession. However, Affleck
cannot reach the dark depths needed to unleash Ollie's hidden anger. When he tries, it is too much like acting.
Smartly, because of all the Affleck-Lopez publicity, Smith pared away as much
as J-Lo's performance as he could, including a wedding sequence that would have
been more of a distraction. She is in the first 12 minutes of the film, then she disappears. And, honestly, you don't miss her.
And that is because of the wonderfully sweet performance of Raquel Castro as Gertie, Ollie's precocious daughter. Looking like a miniature Lopez, Castro grabs the camera and holds onto it, pulling you into her heart along the way.
And Carlin's restrained performance as Bart helps ground the movie to its theme of family.
Liv Tyler as Maya, a young woman attracted to Ollie shows touches of humor and
a fine, strong singing voice.
Smith's script does have some problems. For example, with Ollie's talent, it is never made clear why he feels compelled to work for the street department instead of looking for a p.r. job in Jersey.
His obsession with returning to New York becomes too contrived.
But on the plus side, Smith wisely downplays the Ollie-Maya love story and keeps the father-daughter relationship the centerpiece of the movie.
Jersey Girl takes Smith in a new direction. He stumbles a bit along this new path, but shows promise and potential that will only improve as he continues to
mature as a filmmaker.
When you leave the theater after gauging Ollie's personality, you wonder how his life would have turned out if his wife hadn't died. And more importantly, you begin pondering whether that marriage would have lasted.
That's a credit to Smith's script. So, welcome to the grownup world, Kevin.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, Ind. He
can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or at [email protected]. Bloom's reviews also can be found at the Journal and Courier
Web site: www.jconline.com
Other reviews by Bloom can be found at the Rottentomatoes Web site: www.rottentomatoes.com or at the Internet Movie Database Web site:
www.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Bob+Bloom
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