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Jersey Girl

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 41 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama | Romance
Written by: Kevin Smith
Directed by: Kevin Smith
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 26, 2004
DVD: September 7, 2004
Running Time: 103 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 on appeal for language and sexual content including frank dialogue
Starring Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler, George Carlin, Raquel Castro, Jason Biggs, Jennifer Lopez, Stephen Root, and Mike Starr
An honest, heartfelt and often amusing story about the man who wanted it all but got all that he needed. (Miramax Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Chasing Amy Clerks Clerks II Dogma Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Mallrats
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Liv Tyler is a very particular talent who has sometimes been misused by directors more in love with her beauty than with her appropriateness for their story. Here she is perfectly cast.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Don R. Lewis
Has more heart up on the screen than any film Ive seen in recent years. I mean, were talking sappy, sweet, heart wrenching sentimentality.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
It's an unabashedly square picture, and proud of it. It is also a warm, funny, earnest movie, a stand-up exercise in a kind of Hollywood melodrama -- the feel-good weepie -- that has long been out of fashion.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Though Smith loses many of his past efforts' familiar trappings--Jay and Silent Bob are now confined to the production-company logo--Jersey Girl plays to Smith's strengths like no film since "Clerks."
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell
The minute the movie flashes forward seven years and Castro takes over as Affleck's grade-school-age daughter: The whole enterprise suddenly becomes rather charming.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Smith is looking more and more like a developing major talent, so it could be years until we get a handle on this movie's legacy. The film is not only defensible as a cute one-shot, but also as a positive sign for the future.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
The biggest problem with Jersey Girl may not be exactly its fault; what is up there on the screen is cute and funny and heartfelt, even if it is unflinchingly formulaic.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Jersey Girl is an oddity, hard to dislike but impossible to buy.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Angel Cohn
Overall it's an enjoyable cruise down the Garden State Parkway, and Affleck and Castro are charming companions.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
As an ode to fatherhood, Jersey Girl is sweet without being particularly deep; but Smith is really onto something when he nudges against the ways in which the geographic landscape of a life merges with the genetic one.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
For all of its good-natured guff, Jersey Girl chooses uncomplicated sentiment over the messy complications of real life.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
In Jersey Girl, Kevin Smith wears his heart on his sleeve - and on his pants, socks, boxers and backward-facing baseball cap.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Affleck is modest and engaging, which keeps the movie out of "Gigli" territory. But it's close.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
A lackluster melodrama with only a few inspired moments.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Smith stumbles setting up dramatic confrontations and strains credibility a time or two with implausible moments.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
A bland slab of sentimental hokum that proves even the most smart-alecky of indie auteurs can turn warm and fuzzy on occasion.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
The film's overall construction is faulty. Its dramatic situations ring consistently false, and the story is phony as anything off the Hollywood assembly line. And yet, it's sincere phony.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
Mainly bad, and a shockingly bland departure from a hitherto spunky guy.
Read Full Review >Premiere Aaron Hillis
Jersey Girl may have come from his soul, but it contradicts the charm of a Kevin Smith movie.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Smith has called friend Ben Affleck his muse, and this picture is just as bland and superficially pleasant as its star.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Combines absurd male fantasy and grating chick-flick cliche.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
For some four fifths of its length, Jersey Girl is as square as a turnpike-diner place mat.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
Smith used to make movies to make fun of movies like Jersey Girl; now he's just another guy working the assembly line, which won't make you a sell-out if no one buys it.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
It might have been a marketing nightmare, but if Lopez and Tyler had switched roles, it would have been a better movie.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
The filmmaker drowns his trademark edgy stew of smutty humor, stiff acting and dime-store insight into human nature with a gravy of glutinous bathos, making for a singularly unpalatable dish.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Despite that frisson of naughtiness and the occasional smile, Jersey Girl is overall too bland to hold our interest.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Both stars are atrocious -- but the real blame for this cosmically self-indulgent disaster lies with Kevin Smith, who directs like a proud father who can't stop showing you pictures of his kids. And here's the thing: The brats are ugly.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
The film oozes sentimentality, soap-opera bathos and clumsy cribbings from the Frank Capra book of small-town values. Those are its good points.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
If Affleck stumbles, Smith's script does nothing to catch his fall. Surprisingly, Smith's truest talent that of writing is Jersey Girl's weakest link.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
Sadly, Mr. Smith has made a movie so false and blatantly icky that it's the film equivalent of making goo-goo noises and chucking a baby under the chin for 103 minutes. At the end, all you're left with is drool and a mountain of baby powder.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
The nadir of the movie -- or cheesy zenith -- is Ollie's sodden soliloquy, delivered in the presence of his baby, in which he laments the loss of her mother and his wife. All that's missing are the strains of Ravel's "Pavane For a Dead Princess."
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 41 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Kevin gave it a4:
While "Jersey Girl" certainly doesn't break any new ground, it is heartfelt and overwhelmingly cute. In the lighter, humorous moments, the film succeeds wonderfully, but everything falls apart in the sappy scenes.
Taras E. gave it a10:
Simply great.
Mitch A. gave it a9:
This film may be soppy and extremely sentimental, but do they always have to be bad points. Not the usual Kevin Smith film, but for what it lacks in dick jokes and snootchie bootchies it makes up for in heart.Very funny!!
Janette F. gave it a10:
A movie with a heart.
Alex N. gave it a9:
I would start off by saying that while I have seen a large portion of Smith's body of work, I am in no way a "fan" of any of his prior View Askew films. I find his self-referential and often scatological humor to be trite, obscene, and pointless. That said, he has skill in working actors to give performances in tune to the environment of the work. This piece may not be similar to Smith's earlier, less family-oriented work, but it is important to remember that Spielberg made both "Amistad" AND "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." A director has no responsibility to his earlier work, and Smith's "Jersey Girl" stands alone just fine as a dramatic piece about family, love, life, losses, and how adults cope with the world around them. This is not, as so many people claim, a family film, but rather a film about family. It is intended for adult audiences - adult in both senses of the word - people who search only for Smith's juvenile humor will be sorely disappointed with this film. This is a film for parents, for mature viewers looking for an easy watch, for people who want a film that has something to say, but also remembers its primary role as entertainment. Sure, it isn't Doctor Zhivago, but at least it isn't Mallrats. It is moving, thoughtful, entertaining, and even if it is a little too sweet, that's better than the alternative. Worth the rental for you and your girlfriend, wife, partner, etc.
Petro M gave it a6:
I really dont understand why critics where so harsh about this movie. It s a sweet, relaxing and family type of a movie, that never even pretended to be a runner for an Oscar. Fairly enjoyed it. cheers.
Chris gave it a 2:
All of kev's other movies own - this one was a joke.
