Jersey Girl

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Eloquent and unapologetically cute.

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.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Has more heart up on the screen than any film I’ve seen in recent years. I mean, we’re talking sappy, sweet, heart wrenching sentimentality.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Jersey Girl is an oddity, hard to dislike but impossible to buy.

TV Guide Angel Cohn

Overall it's an enjoyable cruise down the Garden State Parkway, and Affleck and Castro are charming companions.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

For all of its good-natured guff, Jersey Girl chooses uncomplicated sentiment over the messy complications of real life.

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Affleck is modest and engaging, which keeps the movie out of "Gigli" territory. But it's close.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

A lackluster melodrama with only a few inspired moments.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Smith stumbles setting up dramatic confrontations and strains credibility a time or two with implausible moments.

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.

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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Mainly bad, and a shockingly bland departure from a hitherto spunky guy.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Jersey Girl may have come from his soul, but it contradicts the charm of a Kevin Smith movie.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

Startlingly immature.

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.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Combines absurd male fantasy and grating chick-flick cliche.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

For some four fifths of its length, Jersey Girl is as square as a turnpike-diner place mat.

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.

Empire Olly Richards

Sweet, formulaic entertainment, but occasionally clunky.

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.

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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Despite that frisson of naughtiness and the occasional smile, Jersey Girl is overall too bland to hold our interest.

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.

Village Voice Ed Park

Aware of its awfulness.

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.

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.

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.

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."