Holy Fuck

If there's anything more revolting than a smarmy, pseudo-clever Kevin Smith, it's an obscenely sentimental one; the sort of pitch for the cheap seats where a hipper-than-thou filmmaker sells his soul for the chicks and their pussy-whipped dates. I'm certainly no fan of Smith in any form, but at least before this disaster he could pretend that he cared little for the opinions of the mainstream. Now, he's clearly given up entirely, pasting together a slap-dash, half-hearted tear-jearker that is so obvious and riddled with obligatory scenes that it might have been spit out by a computer. It's a bloody wreck, really; a casualty of hubris, immaturity, and the naive belief that anyone would want to watch Ben Affleck act all warm and cuddly with a 7-year-old girl. Still, Smith does understand our need to see Jennifer Lopez die before our eyes, which she does barely ten minutes in. But for the time she occupies -- nay, inhales -- the screen, she reinforces every negative belief thinking people have about the world's least deserving star. It's not enough to give us bickering scenes that feel like an especially bad episode of I Love Lucy must have that childbirth moment where she screams, roars with anger, says she can't take it anymore, then blissfully checks out after the world's most subtle aneurysm. One would think she was passing away from a sudden need to take a sweet little nap. But die she must, which means that at the very least we are spared any possible comparison to the vile Gigli.

Ben Affleck is Ollie, a high-profile music publicist in New York City, who is forced to deal with the loss of his wife on the same day that he becomes a father. Needless to say, the Act One Ollie is a heartless, career-driven bastard; the sort of man who prefers talking on the phone with clients to changing diapers (the heel). Ollie passes off his responsibilities to his father Bart (George Carlin!), who sternly gives his son the standard lecture about "being a man" and "taking care of your daughter." Again, Kevin Smith can kiss my ass, but did he really write dialogue this banal? Finally, Bart refuses to do his son's bidding and Ollie is forced to take the baby to an important press conference. Poop and diaper jokes abound, and Ollie cracks up when the kid starts crying, which prompts the gathered crowd to revolt. Ollie roars obscenities, insults guest of honor Will Smith, and blasts the entire profession of rock journalism. Of course he's fired, and he returns to New Jersey in shame to live with his father and sweep streets for a living.

Fast forward seven years. Ollie is a proud papa, his daughter Gertrude is cute as a button, and for some unexplained reason, nobody (including Carlin) has aged a day. Ollie and Gertie talk like contemporaries, by which I mean that Affleck effortlessly converses like a dippy seven-year-old. While driving, Ollie utters the only agreeable line in the entire movie, although he even manages to fuck that up. After Gertie insists on seeing Cats, Ollie snaps, "Cats was the second worst thing to happen to New York City." I'm assuming the first was 9/11, although having seen Cats myself, I might be tempted to reverse the order. Lets just call it a draw. Ollie continues to schedule interviews in a desperate attempt to return to the music biz, one of which involves, ohmygod, Matt Damon! Attempted humor has rarely been as strained. Then, before you can say meet-cute, Ollie runs into Maya (Liv Tyler) at the local video store. Maya is, as expected, zany and outspoken, peppering poor Ollie with questions about his decision to rent a porno flick. Maya even comes over to Ollie's house later that night, at first to apologize for unintentionally insulting Ollie's dead wife, then to ask him out for lunch. Maya even offers to give Ollie a mercy fuck because he hasn't had sex since J Lo's expiration. It sounds wild and crazy, of course, but nothing any of these people do or say during these scenes is remotely plausible.

Before I proceed, let me remark on the numerous musical interludes Jersey Girl burdens us with. I lost count at ten, but I'd bet good money that no film in the past fifty years has had more. One of the least inspiring involves Ollie and Gertie walking through Central Park, where they end their day with a carriage ride. There's an even worse one near the end of the film after father and daughter fight, and I'm still wondering how Bruce Springsteen's 9/11 anthem "My City of Ruins" relates to a brat's snot-filled tantrum. Ollie agrees to Maya's advances, but as they are undressing, they are -- sound the alarm -- interrupted by Gertie. And that's as close as we come to seeing Tyler's breasts, although considering how piss-poor of an actress she is, I'd just as soon see her chest filled with lead as covered with lust-filled sweat. Ollie also comes into his own as a blue-collar man, wowing the locals with his command of pipe repair. His "big speech" at a city council meeting (which we see but do not hear because of a damned musical interlude) even saves the day, which of course was motivated by looking into his daughter's puppy-dog eyes.

Eventually, Ollie is tempted by the city, securing an interview at a top firm, followed by his announcement that he's going to move back to Manhattan. Changing gears quite rapidly, Ollie roars about wanting to get away from his father, resenting his daughter, and needing to feel connected to the world of celebrity once again. The daughter runs upstairs in tears, shouts that she hates her father, and he retorts with a line that Smith may or may not know was ripped directly from the script of Kramer vs Kramer: "I hate you right back, you little shit." And oh my heavens, but wouldn't you know it -- Ollie's interview occurs at the exact same time as Gertie's big performance in the school talent show. Ollie drives to the interview, but changes his mind about the job after a five-minute chat with Will Smith (!) in the waiting room. You see, the Fresh Prince himself gets all gooey about his kids and all, and Ollie sees the light. He rushes home, flying through tollbooths, and meeting roadblocks with fists raised. He literally runs to the school, is seen outside the glass just as Gertie arrives on stage, and manages, in the nick of time, to take his place in the show right where he's needed. And it's so funny, is it not, that Gertie insists on a particularly rude scene from Sweeney Todd? Let's see here: this is a Catholic school and the acts weren't screened in advance by snooty nuns? The lewd piece causes a teacher waiting in the wings to faint, and the audience to react with stunned silence. But wait! There's ol' reliable -- the gruff man who starts the "slow clap" until the entire crowd erupts with joy. I would give all that I have to be making this shit up.

So here we are, living in a world where Kevin Smith gladly pushes fatherhood like crack, and Ben Affleck takes the words of Will Smith as a recipe for living the good life. Where we know we are witnessing the "heartfelt" because Ben Affleck is gazing into the sky while seated at the foot of J Lo's grave. Where we are meant to cackle at jokes about "crotch rot" as it might affect infants. And where the most prominent recurring joke involves a little girl's refusal to flush the toilet. Little more than easily digestible, lowbrow pap, Jersey Girl is far worse than easy-to-hate junk like New York Minute and Catwoman because it cares deeply about its characters. We either embrace these hurting, wounded souls, or we are deemed overly cynical, mean-spirited cranks who take the world far too seriously. If we mock the true love between a father and his daughter, we are unfeeling and perverse, perhaps even dead inside. But familial bonds should always be more than recycled sit-com antics and sentiments too cheap even for the likes of Lifetime. The love of a little girl over money and fame? Small town values over the pop and passion of the Big Apple? Playing nice with a willing tart like Liv Tyler out of respect for a bitchy wife nearly a decade in the earth? No version of Kevin Smith could believe such patent nonsense. And I ask you -- I resurrected the McDonaldland Massacre for this? Damn straight.

Review Posted: 9.9.04