A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net, March 26, 2004.
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 – giving up a
high-profile, 6AM-to-11PM music and film publicist 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 series of
contrived situations, with characters stuck in circumstances that cry out movie (if they're serious) or sitcom (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,
a short bit featuring cameos by Matt
Damon and Jason Lee, and a scene
toward the end of the film with Will
Smith, discussing the importance of raising children. 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 sitcom 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.
[Berardinelli’s rating: ** out of 4 stars]
Labels:
comedy, drama, romance
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