Jersey Girl (2004) Movie Review

Jersey Girl was originally slated to see multiplex screens during the awards season of 2003. However, late in the game, Miramax Films shifted the opening to the first quarter of 2004 - that portion of the year in which expected poor performers are typically released. The official explanation is that this was done to give Kevin Smith's film enough temporal distance to avoid the Gigli taint. However, the problem with the movie has little to do with the on-screen coupling of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. Jersey Girl is a lackluster melodrama with only a few inspired moments.

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.