‘Jersey Girl’ has no identity

TRICIA BEHLE

At the beginning of “Jersey Girl,” Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) seems

to have the perfect life. He’s a successful music publicist in New

York, married to a beautiful woman (Jennifer Lopez) and expecting his

first child. Then, his ideal life is destroyed when his wife dies

during childbirth -- shortly afterward, he is fired from his job.

Ollie and his newborn daughter move in with Ollie’s father (George

Carlin) back in New Jersey, and so, Ollie’s daughter Gertie (Raquel

Castro) grows up as a Jersey girl.

“Jersey Girl” is meant to be heart-warming yet funny, but it

doesn’t work out that way. Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed the

movie, obviously wanted to make a film about the importance of family

as a tribute to devoted fathers. These are noble sentiments, which he

doesn’t serve very well in his clunky and often predictable story. A

lot of the choices he makes for his characters are implausible or

unrealistic. The dialogue, usually the strongest point of Smith’s

films, is often weak and not very effective.

Some of the actors, like Carlin and Liv Tyler, still manage to

make their roles work. Castro does a decent job as the cute kid with

attitude. Unfortunately, Affleck is just not up to the dramatic

demands of the lead role, and his acting is painfully bad in some

scenes. Jason Biggs is also surprisingly terrible in his small part.

“Jersey Girl” isn’t sure what kind of a film it wants to be. It’s

not funny enough to be a comedy. It’s too vulgar to be a family film.

It’s not involving enough to be a tear-jerker. It’s too cutesy to be

a drama. It’s not sharp-edged enough to be a cult film. Instead,

“Jersey Girl” just ends up being a mess.

* TRICIA BEHLE lives in Newport Beach and works as a software

validator.