Jersey Girl
Filed Under: Film, Reviews | Article Tags : DVD review
By: Erik Swift
October 2004
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Certain New York City residents, usually the ones that never leave Manhattan, don’t accept that anything connected to New Jersey can be better than what they can get in their city, the city that never sleeps. This brain-dead demographic gives New Yorkers a bad name. They’ve clearly never ordered pancakes at the Broadway Diner or one of the 250+ omelets at the Cove or had a hot dog at the Windmill, which stand up against any diner in NY. If there were a hockey season right now the Devils would still be spanking the Rangers just as bad as the Nets whipped the Knicks in the NBA playoffs. Hoboken’s Green Rock Bar & Grill actually has a happy hour with $1 drafts while Ichabod’s in Sea Bright has that year-round. Try to find THAT anywhere in NYC.
Filmmakers don’t help much – they’re the same way. New York has been long cemented in cinemagoers’ minds since Kong grabbed Fay Wray and climbed the same building that Gene, Frank and Jules danced on top of in Stanley Donen’s “On The Town.” Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally met there at the end of “Sleepless In Seattle” and Toby Maguire has spun his web across the skyscrapers in a blockbuster pair of Spider Man films. Sailing past Lady Liberty was a young Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” and the greedy Eighties were the centerpiece to the time capsule that was “Wall Street.” Woody Allen, Martin Scorcese & Sidney Lumet may have immortalized the sights, smells and sounds of the city that course through their lens but Jersey is made to look like the armpit of the nation in everything from “New Jersey Drive” to “The Sopranos” and even “Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle.” Like the Chicago Cubs during another empty finish to a season, it’s downright insulting.
Perhaps “Garden State” director Zach Braff said it best earlier this year when he compared NJ and NY respectively to the little kid with the older sibling that’s an ace athlete. One is always looked at in a lesser light. Leonardo native Kevin Smith’s films are worth rooting for because they jump out of that light. Before “Jersey Girl” appeared in theaters, indie pundits everywhere screamed for the head of sellout Smith. No Jay and Silent Bob? A PG-13 rating? Teaming Ben Affleck & J. Lo after “Gigli”? The horror! The horror!
All rants were premature – Smith has crafted one of his finest efforts after a decade of making the best films to wake and bake to. A scrappy cast that includes George Carlin, Liv Tyler, Jason Biggs and the great Raquel Castro gives the film honesty and heart that many Hollywood products can’t fake. “Jersey Girl” further proves Hollywood wrong with evidence that a good film can be made starring Affleck, playing hotshot New York publicist Ollie Trinke.
Ollie makes the party a party. With his beautiful girlfriend (Jennifer Lopez) and a great career, he is at the top of his game until life suddenly throws him a sucker punch that leaves him raising his baby daughter Gertie alone and out of work. Ollie’s only option is to return across the Hudson to the Monmouth County town where he grew up with his widowed dad Bart (Carlin), a crusty Highlands sanitation worker. His son resents coming back to Jersey as anything less than the star he was but his father eventually slaps some sense into him. Bart gradually convinces Ollie that his real job is being a father while everything else is secondary. Gaining further confidence after encountering the sexy graduate student video clerk Maya (Tyler), Ollie regroups his life but will he get back in the New York groove?
The psychological calling Jerseyites hear from Manhattan is tough to explain, but the City can be seen as an escape route for the disenchanted. The working class dead-end life that inspires much of the songwriting of Freehold’s Bruce Springsteen is a very real thing, which makes reviewing this movie tougher. I frequently encounter this whenever I leave Hoboken, a great little town whose blue-collar populace has morphed into a bar-hopping yuppie center of activity directly across from New York City, and return to my hometown of Toms River (a coastal community that many people from northern Jersey and NYC drive through on their way to summer homes in seaside areas). I tend to ignore the minefield of ex-girlfriends or people I never got along with in grade school that still reside there because I’ve distanced myself from it. Should I ever return there for an extended period of time, it would only be as a last resort.
This jarring circumstance weighs heavily on Ollie. Watch Bart and Ollie spar – it’s Jersey chill vs. New York cool. Outside of “Outrageous Fortune,” Carlin has never been better. Smith’s writing utilizes the comedian’s curmudgeonly persona to his benefit. A deeper connection grows between Bart and Ollie during the film, and Affleck and Carlin are a believable team. Tyler’s Maya has the required cockiness that many of Smith’s characters exude, the type that churn out lines that are too witty and are often delivered that way (Randall in “Clerks” or Amy of “Chasing Amy”). The actress is a purring kitten of femininity in her first film after “The Lord Of The Rings” series. The find is Castro, a doll of a child actor that has the world at her feet after “Jersey Girl.”
Smith generated tepid Oscar buzz with “Chasing Amy,” but it would be nice to see him rewarded with a nomination for his stellar stuff here. This is something cool enough for the masses that have no idea what a salsa shark is, but also something that the hard-core Smith fans can’t pass by. As the director says in the DVD extras, only a heartless prick wouldn’t like “Jersey Girl.” More than an hour of bonuses round out the Miramax DVD, and what tends to be construed as self-serving material is really worth watching. A conversation with Smith and Affleck is actually fun to view. Even though Affleck’s a Red Sox fan, the two laugh it up over their friendship as only friends can. The hysterical “Roadside Attractions” segments from “The Tonight Show” also appear, as do some great text interviews from the principals involved. “Jersey Girl” is a warm and friendly effort, and it’s no surprise that Smith regulars like Monica Hampton, Ian MacGregor, Scott Mosier and Daniel R. Milner turn up behind the scenes. Smith’s dramatic u-turn from his previous work may only be temporary, as “Clerks II” is allegedly coming in 2005. But then, like “Jersey Girl,” revisiting your roots can remind one that as much as things change, the more they remain the same.
Reviewer’s Opinion: RENT IT!!
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