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JERSEY
GIRL
5/10
USA
2004 : Kevin SMITH : 102 mins
Manhattan,
1994. Hotshot publicist Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) is overjoyed when his
beautiful new wife Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez) becomes pregnant. But when
Gertrude dies giving birth to their daughter Gertie, Ollie's world rapidly
falls apart. Eight years later, he's back home in small-town New Jersey,
working as a bin-man alongside dad Bart (George Carlin), and bringing
up his endearingly precocious daughter (Raquel Castro). Still in love
with Gertrude, Ollie hasn't looked at another woman since her death -
until a chance encounter in a video-store brings the kooky-but-stunning
Maya (Liv Tyler) into his life...
Initially
conceived as the latest collaboration between the then-golden couple Affleck
and Lopez, Jersey Girl saw its release-date repeatedly pushed back
after the pair became embroiled in the Gigli fiasco and endured
a very public split-up. It seems likely that some hasty rewriting and
re-editing took place in the interim: Lopez's character is dispatched
with almost unseemly haste, and J-Lo is conspicuously absent from the
film's anodyne poster which foregrounds Tyler and Affleck.
In many respects,
Jersey Girl is a standard-issue romantic comedy. The bereaved-dad-left-holding-baby
set-up is lifted from 1995's Jack & Sarah. And Ollie's dilemma
- between love/family/town on one hand and work/success/city on the other
- is an over-simplistic, over-familiar one in current US cinema (cf Steve
Martin in Cheaper
by the Dozen).
But it's surprising
to see this kind of schmaltzy, multiplex-oriented fare from indie-auteur
Smith - who, since 1994's low-budget, high-invention Clerks, has
carved an idiosyncratic, breezily scatological indie niche with Mallrats
(1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999) and Jay
& Silent Bob Strike Back (2001).
Perhaps we
shouldn't be so taken aback, however: Smith is now the proud father of
a 5-year-old daughter, and Jersey Girl is very much the work of
a young dad catapulted into maturity by discovering the joys and responsibilities
of parenthood (a end-title "For my Dad" dedication to Smith's
recently-deceased father proclaims "I miss you, Pop.") There
are intermittent flashes of the 'old' Smith in some of the dialogue,
situations and characters. But there are also too many scenes that fall
oddly flat, as if Smith didn't quite spend enough time on the details.
There's an
clumsily overegged gag about the of popularity of Andrew Lloyd Webber's
song 'Memory,' for example, while a closing-stretch cameo from Will Smith,
for instance, represents a distinctly missed opportunity. And what's this
baffling reference to Smith's "robot-movie" - presumably summer
'04 tentpole I Robot - in a film which can't be taking place any
later than 2002?
The film's
shortcomings aren't the fault of the performers, of course - Castro, in
what's virtually a lead performance, is much more successful at avoiding
teary-eyed-moppet pitfalls than her writer-director. Tyler isn't stretched
as a ditzy knockout, though Affleck is less convincing as Ollie the dedicated
dad than he is as Ollie the conceited asshole: long before his ascent
to superstar status, Affleck enjoyed his finest hour as a thoroughly obnoxious
yuppie type in Smith's anarchic satire Mallrats.
Smith would
perhaps be better served to return to that kind of juvenile territory:
his choice of 'adult' material is the real problem here, forcing to fight
a running uphill battle against mawkishness, predictability and cliche
- to which he somewhat tamely surrenders with a sappy "I love you,
daddy" finale. Bringing up Gertie is, Ollie proclaims at one stage,
"The one thing I'm really good at." On the evidence of Jersey
Girl - though often sweet and clearly heartfelt - Smith's aptitude
for sentimental family-values romantic comedies is considerably less worthy
of boast.
11th June,
2004
(seen 3rd June : Vue, Leicester : press show - Cinema
Days event)
by Neil
Young
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