# So I saw Jersey Girl (spoilers probably)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 27, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810 "2004-03-27T22:37:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/1 "2004-03-27T22:37:57Z")
Saw it with the wife this afternoon. She thought it was disgusting, gross, stupid, and entirely without a funny moment. And she liked it better than I did. I’ve never walked out of a movie before, but I came darn close to heading out of Jersey Girl after about half an hour. It wasn’t funny. It wasn’t touching. It was terrible. Easily, the worst movie I’ve ever seen at the theater.
It was my idea to go see it. Now I have to think of a way to make it up to my wife. Maybe I’ll by her one of those Lexuses with the big bow on top. Nah, still not enough.
Trust me: Don’t see this movie.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/2 "2004-03-27T22:41:51Z")
I intend to see it and I want to see \*Gigli \* too.
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### Author:  [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2004, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/3 "2004-03-27T22:53:15Z")
**Slacker** , were you a Kevin Smith fan before Jersey Girl? Just wondering…
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### Author:  [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/4 "2004-03-27T22:56:04Z")
> [@Kid\_A](#):
>
> **Slacker** , were you a Kevin Smith fan before Jersey Girl? Just wondering…
Yeah, _Chasing Amy_ is one of my all-time favorite movies. I liked the rest, especially _Clerks_, but they were just funny movies, nothing earth-shaking IMO.
But that’s not why I hated _Jersey_. It was just bad. 😉
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [March 27, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/5 "2004-03-27T23:06:22Z")
Whatever. I thought it was sweet and funny. So did my husband (and we both like Smith’s other films), his 20-year old neice and her 17-year old friend. So did most of the other people in the nearly full theater.
I didn’t think it was great. I did think it was a nice little trifle about a widowed father and motherless daughter, and the sparkling girl from the video store (Liv Tyler) who brings some much needed sunshine into their lives.
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### Author:  [@Skerri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skerri)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/6 "2004-03-28T02:04:27Z")
Ok. I am a big dork for Kevin Smith. I have to get that out of the way before saying that I really dug this movie. It’s a step away from the ‘Jay & Silent Bob’ era, but it was a good, sweet movie.
One thing I am not is an Affleck fan. Girls go gaga over him, and I’ve always just thought he was a complete tool. But I thought he did a really good job in this role. When he’s bitching at Carlin about how the baby’s crying, I thought ‘Oh boy. He’s going to be one of those goofy dads who doesn’t know one thing about kids for the ENTIRE movie.’ But I was pleasantly suprised at the fact that they didn’t dwell too much on the ‘guys don’t know jack about raising kids’ thing. (A la “Big Daddy”.) I’ve always considered him kind of a cardboard actor, but he did a decent job in this role. You could actually buy him being this girl’s father.
Thank God J.Lo was out relatively early in the film. I don’t think I could have put up with her for more than she was in it already. I can’t stand her in the first place, and I’m pretty sure a fossilized piece of cat poo has more acting ability than her.
The little girl that played Gertie (Raquel Castro) was adorable. She also seemed to hold her own very well in this movie. George Carlin also put in a good performance, as the dad who only puts up with crap for so long.
It’s not the best movie ever made, or anything like that, but it is a good movie. There were points where I was crying like a dork, and parts where I was laughing my butt off. I guess it just depends on what kind of movie you’re expecting when you go in. I went in with no expectations, and was really happy with what I got.
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### Author:  [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/7 "2004-03-28T06:23:30Z")
Ok, my wife and I (and a couple of friends of ours) just saw this movie tonight. We really just were not impressed with it. But now, we’re trying to think about it some more…
It was a lot different from any other Kevin Smith movie (obviously). And even though the movie was dedicated to Kevin’s father, who had passed away, we can’t help but think that the movie was a bit “over the top,” if you know what I mean.
For example:
At the end, where Ben Affleck and Raquel Castro are hugging and a spotlight focuses on them, while the background fades to black.
The more my wife and I talked about this, the more we began to wonder if Kevin Smith was almost trying to imitate those types of movies, and kind of poke fun at them, to some degree.
Did anyone else get that idea/feeling…?
… anyone at all?
LilShieste
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/8 "2004-03-28T06:41:46Z")
[QUOTE=Skerri]
Thank God J.Lo was out relatively early in the film. I don’t think I could have put up with her for more than she was in it already. I can’t stand her in the first place, and I’m pretty sure a fossilized piece of cat poo has more acting ability than her.
[QUOTE]
You say that having seen **Out of Sight, Mi Familia** and **Selena** , right?
There are any number of reasons to be sick and tired of Lopez, including being in some pretty bad movies, but you know something? The girl can act. She’s proven she can act, and will prove it again. One of these days.
Maybe **An Unfinished Life** will do it. It’s getting buzz for an extraordinary performance by her (from people who have seen footage already shot). It’s a Lasse Hallström movie starring Lopez, Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman. We won’t know until December when it’s released.
Anyway, I thought her character was a sparkling presence in **Jersey Girl** and though she was only in it for a few minutes, I completely understood why Ollie was so devastated by her death, and why he would remain celibate for 7 years.
> [@](#):
>
> LilShieste:
> It was a lot different from any other Kevin Smith movie (obviously). And even though the movie was dedicated to Kevin’s father, who had passed away, we can’t help but think that the movie was a bit “over the top,” if you know what I mean.
>
> For example: At the end, where Ben Affleck and Raquel Castro are hugging and a spotlight focuses on them, while the background fades to black.
>
> The more my wife and I talked about this, the more we began to wonder if Kevin Smith was almost trying to imitate those types of movies, and kind of poke fun at them, to some degree.
>
> Did anyone else get that idea/feeling…?
I did. [Ebert did too:](http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-jersey26f.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Kevin Smith I believe has spent almost as much time in video stores as Quentin Tarantino, and his study of ancient cliches is put to good use in the closing act of his movie, which depends on not one but three off-the-shelf formulas: (1) The choice between the big city and staying with your family in a small town; (2) the parent who arrives at a school play just at the moment when the child onstage is in despair because that parent seems to be missing, and (3) the Slow Clap Syndrome. Smith is a gifted writer and I believe he knew exactly what he was doing by assembling these old reliables. I’m not sure he couldn’t have done better, but by then we like the characters so much that we give the school play a pass.
>
> Besides, without the school play, we wouldn’t get a chance to see the set constructed for little Gertie by two of the guys who work with Bart and Ollie in the public works department. Let it be said that the Lyric Opera’s set for “Madame Butterfly” was only slightly more elaborate.
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/9 "2004-03-28T06:59:52Z")
Damn, I thought I hit preview. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/10 "2004-03-28T07:04:57Z")
It’s times like this I really wish we could edit our posts. Let me try this again, and maybe it’ll make sense this time.
> [@Skerri](#):
>
> Thank God J.Lo was out relatively early in the film. I don’t think I could have put up with her for more than she was in it already. I can’t stand her in the first place, and I’m pretty sure a fossilized piece of cat poo has more acting ability than her.
You say that having seen **Out of Sight, Mi Familia** and **Selena** , right?
There are any number of reasons to be sick and tired of Lopez, including being in some pretty bad movies, but you know something? The girl can act. She’s proven she can act, and will prove it again. One of these days.
Maybe An Unfinished Life will do it. It’s getting buzz for an extraordinary performance by her (from people who have seen footage already shot). It’s a Lasse Hallström movie starring Lopez, Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman. We won’t know until December when it’s released.
Anyway, I thought her character was a sparkling presence in Jersey Girl and though she was only in it for a few minutes, I completely understood why Ollie was so devastated by her death, and why he would remain celibate for 7 years.
> [@](#):
>
> LilShieste:
> It was a lot different from any other Kevin Smith movie (obviously). And even though the movie was dedicated to Kevin’s father, who had passed away, we can’t help but think that the movie was a bit “over the top,” if you know what I mean.
>
> For example: At the end, where Ben Affleck and Raquel Castro are hugging and a spotlight focuses on them, while the background fades to black.
>
> The more my wife and I talked about this, the more we began to wonder if Kevin Smith was almost trying to imitate those types of movies, and kind of poke fun at them, to some degree.
>
> Did anyone else get that idea/feeling…?
I did. I did. [Ebert did too:](http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-jersey26f.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Kevin Smith I believe has spent almost as much time in video stores as Quentin Tarantino, and his study of ancient cliches is put to good use in the closing act of his movie, which depends on not one but three off-the-shelf formulas: (1) The choice between the big city and staying with your family in a small town; (2) the parent who arrives at a school play just at the moment when the child onstage is in despair because that parent seems to be missing, and (3) the Slow Clap Syndrome. Smith is a gifted writer and I believe he knew exactly what he was doing by assembling these old reliables. I’m not sure he couldn’t have done better, but by then we like the characters so much that we give the school play a pass.
>
> Besides, without the school play, we wouldn’t get a chance to see the set constructed for little Gertie by two of the guys who work with Bart and Ollie in the public works department. Let it be said that the Lyric Opera’s set for “Madame Butterfly” was only slightly more elaborate.
---
### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [March 28, 2004, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/11 "2004-03-28T23:45:03Z")
> [@LilShieste](#):
>
> For example:
> At the end, where Ben Affleck and Raquel Castro are hugging and a spotlight focuses on them, while the background fades to black.
>
> The more my wife and I talked about this, the more we began to wonder if Kevin Smith was almost trying to imitate those types of movies, and kind of poke fun at them, to some degree.
>
> Did anyone else get that idea/feeling…?
>
> … anyone at all?
>
> LilShieste
Not I. I thought it one of the most touching closing shots I’ve ever seen. They are a father and daughter who love each other and at that special moment they are the only two people in their world. As opposed to him “mocking” _Big Daddy_ I really took it more as Kevin Smith schooling Adam Sandler, “_Here’s_ how it’s done, big shot.” I’m kind of reaching here, but for analogy’s sake think of it as Mozart reworking Salieri’s little march in _Amadeus_. 😉
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/12 "2004-03-29T02:01:23Z")
I _must_ know–did anyone in the audience applaud when J.-Lo’s character died?
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### Author:  [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/13 "2004-03-29T02:43:35Z")
After seeing this movie, I came to this conclusion:
The good news is, Kevin Smith has matured as a director.
The bad news is, Kevin Smith has matured as a director.
---
### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [March 29, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-i-saw-jersey-girl-spoilers-probably/236810/14 "2004-03-29T15:45:54Z")
> [@Eve](#):
>
> I _must_ know–did anyone in the audience applaud when J.-Lo’s character died?
Uh, no, Eve. She died in childbirth, usually not an event one applauds.