Jersey Girl Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)April 5th, 2004
Jersey Girl
by Ryan Ellis
April 1, 2004
Yes, I hammer out this review on April Fool's Day. I wonder if Kevin Smith was trying to fool his loyal fans with his first film in three years, 'Jersey Girl'. Let's have the truth now---this one was made by some other guy using that name, right? Some gooey sentimentalist with no zing? You'll find no Smith staples: no Jay & Silent Bob, no recurring View Askewniverse characters, not many in-jokes or 'Star Wars' references, and certainly not much humour. The writer/director has made a tidy career out of mixing foul language, smart characters, and bucketloads of knee-slappers. But he seems to have been listening to the sappiest love songs with the sappiest love movies playing while writing this script. Apparently, he wrote it based on his own experiences with his young daughter. That's sweet and I'm sure it felt very personal to him. If only there was something memorable about 'Jersey Girl'. The Kevin Smith of old would have lambasted such a
cliche-fest.
So am I saying that this flick seems to go against his best instincts, wasting his talent for ribaldry? Well, he already took his "Jersey Trilogy" further than expected by making it a "Jersey Quintuplet". It WAS time for him to do something different, but I wish he'd been able to construct a better story. His actors do the best they can with a cast-in-cement plot we've seen 8000 times before. For those snickering about this being a Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez project, that's not an issue. She's out of the picture after the first reel. No, the real (love) story here is between Affleck and Raquel Castro (a rookie who plays the title character, name o' Gertie). When Gertrude (Lopez), dies in childbirth, Ollie Trinke (Affleck) is left with a baby girl and a high-maintenance PR job in New York City. Hoo-ah. After trashing a celebrity and taking verbal shots at gossip magazine writers (which must have felt good for the over-exposed Affleck, if only as a plot point), he's fired and tucks tail back to New Jersey to move in with dear old dad, Bart. The dad here is played by George Carlin, a Smith regular, who actually gets to act this time. He's a scene-thief throughout, which is amazing when you consider he's saddled with a lot of uninspired "you gotta be a better father" dialogue. Watch him closely in his last scene with Affleck. Carlin is the rock in this movie, the quiet leader of the cast.
It takes a while for the 4th lead to come into the picture, but eventually Liv Tyler (Maya, the cute video store clerk) meets Ollie and Gertie. I like how the initial heat between Maya & Ollie cools down and they try to remain friends. Their potential love affair is not the key theme, though. Along with Bart's city worker buddies (Stephen Root and Mike Starr), the 4 main characters form a tight group of family and friends. That's the vibe to look for here, with the obvious main theme of father/daughter bonding. These are likable people, even if they're not half as funny as any of the best characters in the 5 previous Smith movies. This is a more complete film than most of his others (except for his wonderful 'Chasing Amy', still one of the most affecting and interesting love stories I've seen), aided by Vilmos Zsigmond's work as cinematographer. The director still hasn't caught up to the writer, but he's taken progressive steps each time out. There's nothing wrong with the movie from a technical point of view. This is a long way from the cheapo production values in 'Clerks'.
What finally opens Ollie's eyes comes in the form of a cameo by a major film star (no reviewer should be telling you which one). That scene starts out okay, but it becomes rather pointless because we already know the hero will end up making the "family first" decision. Another pointless idea is Tyler's scholarly analysis of Affleck's sexual habits. It's dropped almost as soon as it begins, although maybe that's just her way of getting into his pants. Anyway, I just can't recommend 'Jersey Girl'. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't hear myself think with all those plot gears rumbling through the theatre. Will Ollie make the school play on time and win back his daughter's heart? Will he go back to New York and make everyone sad or stay in New Jersey and make everyone happy? Will he finally discover his inner Dorothy and realize he doesn't need to look for his heart's desires somewhere else...by golly, they're in his own back yard? Really, I shouldn't be sarcastic about a good-hearted film. It's just that---like Tim Burton's 'Big Fish'---this is as close to selling out as Kevin Smith has ever been. The plot could have been spit out by the laziest Hollywood hack. Sure, Castro is a decent actress, Carlin is wonderful, Affleck is okay in the lead role, and Tyler probably has the best dialogue in the whole movie. But the positives just didn't distract me from the negatives.
Maybe I was in a bad mood after seeing 5 consecutive moronic trailers beforehand. If I have to listen to that "a world they never imagined and a love they never thought possible" voice-over guy for 15 minutes straight again, I'm going to have to commit suicide. (Can you burst open a major artery with your keys?) Smith's other hilarious flicks might have pulled me out of that brain-numbing funk brought about by the previews, but... Hey, come to think of it, 'Jersey Girl' is not much different than the pap they were selling before the feature attraction. I can tell you almost exactly what will happen in those generic cream-puff movies. The last word we should be able to use to compare such tripe to a Kevin Smith script is "generic". Sadly, he put his screenwriting pencil on auto-pilot and depended on his actors to carry this picture on charm and likability alone. Nice try, but that's just not gonna cut it. If you're going to manipulate me, at least make me laugh too.
To contact me with your own 37 cents, write to [email protected]. And check out my website at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend.
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
