Favorite Fridays: Jersey Girl

Good Morning Friends! I hope you are having a most excellent Friday. Some weeks back I had this idea for a new series on the blog where I share some item that is particularly special to me. Up until this point I have largely been talking about items in video games, but this morning we are going to diverge a bit from that format. I am also not nearly as faithful about doing one of these every Friday as I am with the Mixtape Mondays series, but ultimately that was the intent. Sometimes you create a series to give you options for when you are feeling like following that format and that is very much the case with this series.

Jersey Girl

Jersey Girl is effectively the Kevin Smith film that no one remembers, but I am here today to make a case for you giving it the time of day. This will not be an easy undertaking, especially given that it is actually hard to find on streaming services. You are forced to purchase it through Google or Apple or go through the nonsense that is adding Cinemax to your Hulu or Amazon subscription in order to access it. However, I am here today to tell you that this is quite possibly my favorite Kevin Smith film. I like many watched Clerks when I was a teenager and became a fan of his particular style of irreverent “dick and fart” humor. I think I matured with him as I followed his films through a sequence of Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy… each time I feel improving on what made a Kevin Smith film. Jersey Girl to me is the pinnacle of that maturation allowing the tackling of a serious film while still interjecting enough of that irreverent flavor to make it easy to consume.

Both Critics and Fans of Kevin Smith disagree with me however, given that the film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 42%. Ultimately the film was a “failure” from a sheer monetary standpoint as it cost a reported $35 million to make and only took in an adjusted gross worldwide of just barely over that $35 million. I would say probably a large chunk of that money went to the cast, because it was rather wildly sprinkled with talent for the time. Here is a rundown of some of the major cast:

• Ben Affleck – Ollie Trinke
• Jennifer Lopez – Gertrude Steiney (very briefly)
• Liv Tyler – Maya
• George Carlin – Bart Trinke
• Stephen Root – Greenie
• Mike Starr – Block
• Jason Biggs – Arthur Brickman
• Will Smith – as Himself

So what went wrong? Why did this film perform as poorly as it did? Here is my line of thinking.

Problem 1: Bennifer and Gigli

One of the problems with bringing a film to market is that they have a very long lead time. Jersey Girl was originally targetted to a 2003 release date, which was ultimately pushed back to 2004 for reasons I will discuss shortly. That means that more than likely it started pre-production work in 2001 and filmed in 2002… and this was an era when the Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez celebrity coupling referred to as a “Bennifer” was a hot property. However, that changed rapidly after the release of the studio flop Gigli with an estimated budget of $54 million and a Gross Worldwide return of just over $7 million. Jersey Girl went through a few changes, namely the role of Jennifer Lopez was diminished in the advertising and it was pushed back to 2004 hoping that it would offer enough time for the bad press of Gigli to die down.

I think however more than anything the public just did not care to see Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in anything. I am not exactly the type of person that consumes media focused on celebrity gossip, but even then it was impossible to escape people talking about “Bennifer”. I think people just got sick of it, and what was a net positive in 2001 when planning and production likely began for Jersey Girl, was a toxic asset in 2004 when the movie was finally released. Being a follower of Kevin Smith, I knew about the film and was anxiously awaiting it… but I remember it was actually rather hard to get ahold of at the time of release. This is one of the films that was quietly released without much fanfare, and if my memory is correct was only actually in theaters locally for a few weeks. I remember missing it at the traditional theaters and ultimately having to catch it at one of the budget second-run theaters that were popular at the time.

Long story short… Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were not a couple anyone wanted to see at the time.

Problem 2: Clerks Fans

The other core problem the movie had was the fact that it was Kevin Smith’s film. With that came a certain understanding of the type of film the audience was expecting. Prior to Jersey Girl, you had Clerks in 1994, Mallrats in 1995, Chasing Amy in 1997, Dogma in 1999, and the exceptionally campy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. While Dogma and Chasing Amy were significantly better films than the rest, they all followed a fairly familiar formula of putting the “dick and fart” jokes upfront and then weaving a narrative around them.

Jersey Girl was a wild departure of Kevin trying to make a more serious film, with the main character losing both his wife and his career only a few minutes into the film and the core narrative focusing on the struggle of adapting to being a proper adult and the rigors of parenthood. In many ways, I think these were things that Kevin himself was struggling with, and as one of his audience being of a specific age… I was going through these changes along with him. However, there was still a core fandom that did not want any part of a serious Kevin Smith film. It is moments like this that a “cult following” can backfire and discussion of “selling out” starts being mentioned. His legion of fans… ultimately panned this film.

Why it is worth watching

There is nothing about Jersey Girl that is original, in fact, one of the key complaints that I hear levied against it by critics is that it is too formulaic. The thing is… formulaic movies exist in droves and not every film has to be groundbreaking. There is a sub-genre of romantic comedy that centers around an awful guy learning to love through interactions with a heart warming child they are forced to take care of. This worked for Liar Liar in 1997 and Big Daddy in 1999, and I think very much Jersey Girl was an attempt to apply the Kevin Smith style of character-driven comedy to that sort of a film. I think it does so beautifully but also does heavily stack up some tropes. I think it does so in a charming manner that creates an extremely watchable film.

What does it for me though is like all Kevin Smith films, it creates this universe of loveable characters that all interact together to make a plot. There are great performances by George Carlin as the grumpy grandfather with a heart and his two coworker friends in Stephen Root as Uncle Greenie and Mike Starr as Uncle Block. There is a side plot in the movie that Ben Affleck’s character nuked his career over raging about Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and not understanding why anyone was taking it seriously. This is an opinion that I legitimately remember being voiced about not understanding why the “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand” dude was a big deal. It beautifully bookends this concept with an appearance by Will Smith towards the end of the film talking about the only thing that really matters to him are his children.

If for no reason else the movie wins huge points for me for the horrified teacher played by Betty Aberlin of Mister Rogers Neighborhood fame. There is a side gag focused on how every child in young Gertie’s class is obsessed with Cats, and at a talent show EVERYONE is apparently singing Memories from Cats. Instead Gertie performs a talent show rendition of “God That’s Good” from Sweeny Todd embedded above. Firstly it is extremely well done, but the shocked teacher and confused audience are what really sell the scene for me. The film as a whole has all of the Kevin Smith oneliners, but they are just woven together in a narrative structure that is focused on something more meaningful than dick humor.

I personally feel like Jersey Girl deserves more attention than it has gotten over the years. I feel like a number of circumstances not related to the film itself have painted it In a certain light. If you ever have a chance to watch it with an open mind, then I highly suggest you do so. It is absolutely still a Kevin Smith film, but just one that takes a more serious path to get to its humor.