Kevin Smith, normally known for his off-beat and quirky movies tries his hand at a different style of film, a mainstream dramatic comedy, complete with a Hollywood ending and all the cliches to get you there.
Jersey Girl is the story of Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) a smooth and successful New York publicist who seems to have it all until his perfect life is tragically upended. After the passing of his wife Gertrude (Lopez) his priorities need to be re-arranged now that he finds himself a single father, without a job.
After the Gigli bomb all eyes are now on Affleck and his ability to act, or lack thereof. The first half of the movie was painful as Affleck shows how little range he has. Compounding the problem was the fact that every time J-Lo and him are on the screen together you cannot help but think about their highly-publicized failed relationship.
Fortunately the movie improves when Affleck’s daughter, Gertie, is introduced, an amazingly charming girl played by — Raquel Castro. Her charisma blows Ben off the screen, as the 7 year old shows Ben that acting means being vulnerable, revealing something about yourself, and the ability to confer your emotions to an audience. These are things Affleck has had a hard time doing in the past and is not able to do in this film.
Affleck is also shown up by supporting actors George Carlin, playing his father, and Liv Tyler, his potential girlfriend.
While Affleck is partially to blame, he is not helped by the poorly developed plot, which tries to create a conflict between Affleck’s past life as a rich, career-man in Manhattan, to his simple family-man life in Jersey. The problem is that at no point do you believe that there is a conflict in Affleck’s heart; he is only interested in his “old-life” in Manhattan. He does not seem to care about his daughter, and when in the end he is forced to make a choice, it is only because the movie forced him into it. His character is a jerk, and he is not a “fool that awakes from his folly.” Instead Smith forces the character that way without ever fully developing his conflict between the two choices. Or, if he tried to, Affleck was unable to present it to the audience.
On top of all that Smith relies on every cliche in the book, including the dreaded slow-clap until finally, at the end I did succumb to some of the emotion that Smith poured onto me, but I felt cheated, realizing that I only bought in after his third or fourth try.
The movie could have been a simple story, the conflict between Ben’s two “lives” is compelling enough, and instead Smith misses the mark completely. In his desire to make a different kind of film, Smith loses all of his edge that has gotten him his notoriety.
