Jersey Girl

Why did everyone hate this movie so much?

I've finally seen Jersey Girl, and I sincerely don't see why it was shot down so hard. It was beautifully shot (thanks in no part to Academy Award winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, he of Close Encounters of the Third Kind fame), finely acted, touching, warm and a nice change from Kevin Smith's usual poopy jokes. Ben Affleck was believable, Liv Tyler was cute and George Carlyn was surprisingly restrained.

I mean, come on, seriously. Kevin Smith does write some wonderfully depraved dialogue and many know this as his trademark, but what's wrong with the guy spreading his wings a bit and trying out something different? Sure, I prefer the movies he's previously put out with the immortal lines "Snoogans!", "Bung!" and "...then, Black Beauty decided to do some of her own mounting...", but Jersey Girl was alright. It's not in the same calibre as his previous films, but it was nice.

And not in a 'nice size' kind of way, either.

But is the lack of Jason Mewes, sexual references and Walt Flanagan's dog jokes the main reason why it flopped so bad and critically mauled? I don't think so.

I reckon it's all a question of timing and expectations.

People expect a certain thing from a Kevin Smith movie. They expect to laugh out loud at his crass-ness. They expect a certain type of humor, regardless of what story Kevin tells. So far, that's been the unifying theme in Kevin's movies: the humor.

But the lack of humor doesn't hamper the movie. It would probably look out of place and besides, there's enough touches of Kevin-ism's here and there to make one chortle (the 'I'll show you mine, you show me yours' scene a particular laugh out loud favourite). No, the movie didn't sell because it came out at the wrong time.

Before Jersey Girl was released the world was watching the exploits of Ben & JLo with extreme scrutiny. Then the disaster that was Gigli came out, followed by their break-up. Worst of all, Kevin had to publicly declare his biggest secret: that it's not a Bennifer movie.

And the nice thing about the movie is it's little surprises. If the movie had come out at the height of Benniferwatch everyone and their ex-mother-in-law would be making their way to the cinema, purely for the purpose of proving

(a) a Bennifer movie is going to suck ass and

(b) Kevin Smith going 'mature' is going to suck even bigger ass.

A lot of ass-sucking was expected.

They would have gone in and in the first 15 minutes POW! Jennifer Lopez is out of the picture. An entire audience goes "what the fuck?!" and watch on. Suddenly all the other surprises pop out, one after the other:

"Hey, Jason Lee looks kinda old!"

"Matt Damon's in a cameo!"

"How the fuck did Kevin afford Big Willie Style?"

They would have then come out of the cinema with warm feelings and gone home to hug their children. Or someone elses children. Regardless, the children hugging would be completely non-Jackson and full of paternal love (ok, maybe I'm giving the movie more credit than it's due, but it's my post, fuckwhip).

Instead, Gigli comes out and everyone flat out despises the movie with enough hatred to start a terrorist organization and they break up. By the time Jersey Girl rolls around, nobody cares. And the few that do go watch it come out feeling it was a two-out-of-five star movie and below.

Yes, there are other, better Kevin Smith movies which are a whole lot funnier. Yes, I'm a big fan of Kevin Smith. But I'm not gonna lie if I think a movie of his is shit. I just haven't seen a shit Kevin Smith film. There are ones that dissapointed me in some aspects, he's no Scorsese. For example, Dogma didn't live up to my expectations and I'm one of the few that thought the long speeches in Chasing Amy were unnecessary, but these didn't stop me from enjoying the movies. And to further my argument of unbiassed-ness (that can't be right), I'm one of the Kevin Smith fans that liked Mallrats more than Chasing Amy (I've always believed that there are only two types of Kevin Smith fans in the world: those that like Mallrats more and those that like Chasing Amy more. Clerks doesn't count 'cos everybody loves that one). I prefer the funny-as-fuck-flat-out-comedy Kevin Smith movie, but that doesn't mean I couldn't enjoy Jersey Girl.

It's sappy, it's Hollywood-y, but it's sweet and pulls the right strings. I could be the only one out there who liked it, but fuck it. I was expecting shit as everyone else had been claiming it was a steaming pile and instead found a charming little movie enjoyable enough to watch. Bear in mind, everybody tore Mallrats a new asshole when it first came out, and now it's a cult fave. Sure, Jersey Girl probably won't end up being a cult fave, but it's nice. Sure, given a choice I'd rather watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as a repeat viewing movie, but Jersey Girl was a nice film and it made me laugh and smile and kept me interested enough to want to finish the movie till 3am.

And there ain't nothing wrong with that.