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Jersey
Girl Movie Review: There is promise in the premise, although the topic has already been dissected in popular films like Three Men and a Baby. Jersey Girl is about the relationship between a single father, Ollie Trinke (Affleck) and his beloved, precocious daughter, Gertie (Raquel Castro). She changes his life, forcing him to give up everything he once believed to be important only to discover that there is greater satisfaction in caring for her and shaping her life. Ollie learns the value of selflessness - abdicating a high-profile, 6 am-to-11 pm job; terminating the lease on a plush Manhattan apartment; and abstaining from sexual contact with women - all for the good of his little girl. For a while, writer/director Smith toes the line between smart and sudsy before slipping on the bar of soap and going for the Kleenexes. However, although this story has great personal meaning to him (he based it on his relationship with his daughter), he fails to convey it. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Jersey Girl is its earnestness. Smith desperately wants us to like and "get" it. He's trying to be mature, without realizing how generic the material is. We are treated to a repetition of contrived situations, with characters stuck in circumstances that cry out "movie" (if they're serious) or "sit com" (if they're supposed to be funny). The humor is tame. Those who enjoyed the fresh vulgarity of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma will be puzzled by what Jersey Girl offers. This is family-friendly fare. The PG-13 rating is primarily for cuss words. The most off-color sexual remark is when a woman claims to masturbate twice daily. Compare that to one of many discussions in Clerks. Normally, Ben Affleck is quite good in this kind of movie. Despite the action hero label that Hollywood continually tries to encumber him with, he does his best work in less ostentatious roles. He's a character actor. Yet, in this case, there's something stilted about his performance, perhaps because he is constantly being upstaged by his pint-sized co-star. Raquel Castro is undeniably cute - perhaps too cute. With her Little Orphan Annie smile and her wise-beyond-her-years demeanor, she's the kind of kid who exists only in movies. And she makes everyone else in Jersey Girl look boring - Affleck as her dad, Liv Tyler as her dad's would-be girlfriend, and George Carlin (credible in a straight part) as her grandpa. She never shares the screen with Lopez, whose role as Ollie's wife ends abruptly when she dies in childbirth. Lopez isn't in the movie long enough for anyone to call this Gigli II. The film ends with the kind of crowd-pleasing scene that I have experienced dozens of times before. (Okay, so I've never seen it done in the context of a musical number from "Sweeney Todd," but you get the idea.) I had expected something more original and less maudlin from Smith. His use of music to provide emotional cues is also straight out of the melodrama-by-numbers school. Moments of inspiration include the opening sequence, in which a group of seven-year olds read essays about their families, and a short bit featuring cameos by Matt Damon and Jason Lee. The first few scenes teaming Affleck and Tyler are lively, but, after a strong start, that romance becomes almost irrelevant. It also results in the most obvious sit-com sequence of the movie as Gertie catches her dad and his girlfriend in a compromising position. There's no arguing that this is a departure for Kevin Smith. Maybe I would have been touched by this film if I had believed in the characters and their situations, but too much feels forced and scripted, the clear product of a writer's keyboard. Smith can write effective dramatic material - he proved it with Chasing Amy - but he misses the target by a wide margin on this occasion. Hopefully, Jersey Girl is nothing more than a manifestation of growing pains, and this new, mature Smith will provide us with future projects every bit as compelling (albeit in a different vein) than his old, vulgar self. Rating: ** out of **** © 2004 James Berardinelli Known mostly for his witty and extremely vulgar low budgeted comedies like Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, writer/director Kevin Smith takes a different turn with the warm sentimental tale Jersey Girl. Due to the presence of Bennifer (Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez), speculation has hailed this film as a sequel to Gigli, Jersey Girl comes nowhere close to that expectation. Kevin Smith is too talented a writer to let that happen and though this film is nothing like he has done before, in a different tone his fingerprints are still all over it. The
story opens in 1994 where we meet top-notch New York publicist
Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) falling head over heels for the
beautiful Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez). After quickly marrying,
the two learn that they will also soon be parents. Unfortunately
tragedy ensues when Gertrude dies during giving birth to
their daughter Gertie. Grief stricken and confused, Ollie
ends up losing his job in New York and decides to resort
back home to New Jersey with his candid city sweeping father
(George Carlin). The film then moves forward years later,
where Ollie now works the same job as his father and is
raising his flamboyant seven-year-old daughter (Raquel Castro).
Filled with desires of getting back into the publicity market
in New York, Ollie attends continuos interviews only to
be embarrassingly denied. Then one night while renting Gertie
a video, Ollie meets a charming and intelligent graduate
student named Maya (Liv Tyler). However, though everyone
around him sees his blessedness, Ollie still yearns for
his old life back in the city. Being Smith’s most personal film, the realism of the father and child relationship between Ollie and Gertie as well as Bart and Ollie are the strength of the script. Audiences have all seen a story of this kind before, but the way Smith tells his version is enduring. There is also no presence of the ill-mannered Jay and Silent Bob, which is the first time in a film by Smith that his two icons have not appeared. On the other hand, there are amusing cameos by veteran Kevin Smith actors Matt Damon and Jason Lee. Also absent are drugs and continuos swearing, though this film presses its PG-13 limit with its language. The sense of Smith’s writing is present and his sequencing is more patient due to the type of story he is telling. The characters are likeable and the comedic deliveries are well staged. The film is not perfect; some of the outside factors are weary, such as many of the built up conflicts. Nevertheless, Jersey Girl represents effectively the type of story that Kevin Smith wanted to tell. Ben Affleck is about as hard an actor to put a stamp on as it gets. In some films he is superb (Shakespeare in Love, Changing Lanes), while in others he is as lost as can be (Daredevil, Gigli). As Ollie, Affleck is wonderful in one of the best roles of his career. He just seems more in tune with this character and does not try to be bigger than the film; he finally lets the material be the focus. Affleck’s Armageddon co-star Liv Tyler is sweet in her supporting role as Maya. George Carlin is also stellar in his most lengthy film role as Bart, Ollie’s honest father. The scene-stealer of this film is young Raquel Castro, who is so cute and lovable as Gertie. In her first acting gig, Castro will win you over within her first few moments of screen time. The other half of Bennifer, Jennifer Lopez is only in the film for 15 minutes, but is sufficient in the small amount of time she has on the screen. There was actually a wedding scene involving Affleck and Lopez’s characters that Smith left on the editing room floor due to the media bizarre over their previous relationship and eventual breakup. Smith has outspokenly stood up for this film and Affleck. He in fact offered giving back any moviegoer’s money if they did not like the film. It does seem like he won’t be giving too many refunds, because Jersey Girl is a pleasantly endearing film. Grade: B Director Kevin Smith returns to the silver screen with a departure from his smart and stylized “View Askew” comedies. He has put his infamous alter-ego characters Jay & Silent Bob in mothballs but has also sounded his bugle to ring in some familiar faces he has worked with in the past.
In a bold step, Smith tries to lift himself out of the indie-comedy world and into a bittersweet dramatic family comedy. It is a risky career move and it almost pays off.
Smith’s latest project “Jersey Girl” finds New York publicist Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) at the height of his profession until a catastrophic event leaves Ollie a single father, homeless and jobless. Ollie is forced to move back to his old neighborhood and move in with his father (George Carlin). Ollie yearns to return to the limelight but in some ways over the years he is in the spotlight in one little girl’s eyes.
“Jersey Girl” in a lot of ways is a nice tender comedy about the love between a “suddenly” father and an ambitious daughter. But what bugged me about “Jersey Girl” was the extremely awkward insertion of a new love interest for the Affleck character. A video store clerk (Liv Tyler) who catches him renting an adult movie while his daughter is in the store. Then she proceeds to question him about his sexual activities for a thesis she is working on. Is that quite odd or is it just me?
I also had some problems with some of sentimental stuff between father, daughter and grandfather. It felt some what hollow in places. You know that emptiness feeling you have when reading a really cheesy Hallmark card.
I can’t say that I enjoyed Affleck in his role as Ollie. I couldn’t feel for the guy or understand his motives. There were a lot of scenes where I could have seen him abandon the daughter with his father. In some ways I was also expecting it. The film never really allows us to grow enough with Ollie to see his side or how he struggles with his responsibility. As the film progresses and shifts focus from Ollie onto his daughter and eventually Maya, the video store girl, we seem to be lost to what or who Ollie Trinke is.
In a lot of ways I felt that Kevin Smith more evolved with his vastly underrated “Chasing Amy”. He was so masterful in addressing complex issues and also bringing on the laughs. “Jersey Girl” is cute in places and Smith does a wonderful job in coaxing a deeper side out of George Carlin as the grandfather but for the most part I felt internally it was a struggle between two Kevin Smiths even if he never did appear as Silent Bob. “Jersey Girl” is more of a journey than a destination for Smith.
I admire
Smith for his wanting to expand his horizons. His next project,
“The Green Hornet” (if that is what it is),
has to be a complete departure. He needs to reinvent the
wheel and if I were him I would look to Warren Beatty’s
“Dick Tracy” for help. Come on Smith, be bolder.
We are all cheerin’ for you! Kevin Smith takes a sharp turn from his edgy, knowing goofiness with this surprisingly slushy drama. It retains much of the astute, irreverent dialog we've grown to expect, and it features one of Affleck's best-ever performances. But once the plot kicks in, it simply stops dead in its tracks. Ollie (Affleck) is a high-powered Manhattan publicist whose life is shattered when his wife (Lopez) dies in childbirth and he finds it impossible to juggle both career and fatherhood. So he moves in with his father (Carlin) in New Jersey, and seven years later the two men and Gertie (Castro) make a happy little family. But Ollie won't give up on his career. The question is: Will anyone have him back after a rather spectacular fall from grace? Then he starts to fall for a quirky girl (Tyler) at the local video shop. And Gertie tells him she doesn't want to leave Jersey. Until Tyler's appearance, this is a tight and compelling examination of how life can change in an instant ... and how efficient humans are at adapting to whatever comes along. The film's collapse at this point isn't Tyler's fault (she's wacky and charming); the problem is that the trite plot takes over. What is essentially a sophisticated and mature look at dawning reality becomes a clumsily contrived Hollywood rom-com pitting big city aggressiveness against down-home family values. Duh, I wonder which one wins? At least the performances are strong enough to carry us through to the sweet and tidy finale. Affeck returns to his more introspective, soulful style (see Good Will Hunting and Chasing Amy), nicely balancing the serious undertone with Smith's jaggedly hilarious dialog. He works well opposite the precociously gifted Castro and the gruff, plain-talking Carlin. Meanwhile, Smith directs the film with a polish we haven't seen in his work before. Alas, the plot is far too slick as well, using one cornball set piece after another until by the end we give up on the story's overflow of cliches and gooey sentiment. Because we grow to like the characters, we're willing to hang on to the end, but only to hear what they'll say. By then we couldn't care less what they do.
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