Will Smith: What’s your daughter’s name? Ollie: Gertrude. Will Smith: Damn, why’d you do that, man?

Director: Kevin Smith

Writer: Kevin Smith

Starring: Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, Raquel Castro, George Carlin and Jennifer Lopez

Synopsis: After being sidelined by an unexpected tragedy and personal issues, a widower is left to care for his precocious daughter and work towards rebuilding his life and career.

Jersey Girl is Kevin Smith’s attempt at moving on from his New Jersey comedies featuring Jay and Silent Bob. He wanted to make something deeper and more personal. It shows with the sweet story of a father raising his daughter after the death of her mother during child birth. Great performances from Ben Affleck and the extremely cute Raquel Castro as Gertie his daughter. The film mirrors Kevin’s life at the time as he just had a daughter with his wife, Jennifer Schwalbach Smith, and was dealing with fatherhood. Lucky for Kevin his wife survived the pregnancy.

The film opens with Ben Affleck as Ollie Trinke a Music Executive who is madly in love with Gertrude Steiney (played by Jennifer Lopez). The opening montage shows them falling in love, meeting Ollie’s dad (played charmingly by George Carlin), getting married, getting pregnant and then Gertrude passing away. It is sweet and and well established showing Smith’s maturity as a filmmaker.

Unfortunately at the time the film was marred by the public backlash of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s flop ‘Gigli’ and their over publicized romance. In a cruel twist of irony now in 2022 Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are back together and everyone loves them as a couple. Too bad Kevin Smith didn’t make the movie now it would have been a hit. The film however didn’t deserve the backlash as it is a sweetly told story of a man growing up with his daughter. The dialogue is as strong and witty as Smith’s earlier films but shows more maturity in its subject matter. Instead of early twenty year old men hanging out at a grocery store or mall this film deals with a young man learning to be a father.

Liv Tyler is sweet and sexy as Maya a video store clerk who develops a relationship with Ollie. As the film progresses it gets a bit too sentimental and it’s not as entertaining throughout as Smith’s former works, although Smith’s raunchy humour continues throughout in his dialogue. It’s overshadowed by the mawkish plot and the over reliance of the fatherhood messages. Despite good performances from Ben Affleck and Raquel Castro, Smith’s attempt at a more adult orientated comedy drama doesn’t have enough memorable scenes, fun dialogue or entertaining characters like his previous films to rise above his oeuvre.

D+