Jersey Girl
Directed by Kevin Smith
- comedy
- romance
- drama
The story
Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he's suddenly faced with single fatherhood, a defunct career and having to move in with his father. To bounce back, it takes a new love and the courage instilled in him by his daughter.
What it’s like
Warm, unhurried New Jersey daylight: sun on Jersey streets, a Sunday-afternoon hush in suburban kitchens, and a looser, shaggier look than the polished Hollywood surface the story starts with. Kevin Smith frames most scenes in plain medium shots and lets conversations run long and talky on stoops, in diners and at a father's dinner table, with the comic rhythm of friends who have known each other forever. The music-industry gloss of the early scenes gives way to softer, more domestic colour: pale kitchen light, cluttered rooms, a little neon at night. The mood is wry and tender, a comfort-watch with a lump in the throat, the kind of film that suits a rainy Sunday or an evening when you want to laugh and then feel a bit teary. Grief and single parenthood come through in small moments rather than melodrama, and the emotional arc follows a man who has to become less self-absorbed and more present, slowly and clumsily. Language is frequently crude, sex is talked about freely though rarely shown, and there is no real violence, only occasional sharp arguments and sadness. It suits viewers who enjoy Smith's chatty humour and want a heartfelt, low-stakes story about fatherhood and starting over.
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