FilmBlather.com

"Like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air is ever gonna have a movie career!"

Here at last is the Kevin Smith that Chasing Amy promised and that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back threatened to destroy. Jersey Girl, Smith's latest and probably finest film, finally uses his flair for sharp dialogue in a way that isn't gimmicky, showy and attention-grabbing. Perhaps even more significantly, it also shows real progress for Kevin Smith the director, who, it would seem, has finally mastered a brand of visual ebb-and-flow. Die-hard fans will probably decry Jersey Girl as the man's most "conventional" project, an act of "selling out" to Hollywood, but that's all nonsense: Smith has stopped thinking of himself as the most clever little boy on the block and started becoming a filmmaker.

If the ostensible re-pairing of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (I say "ostensible" because it doesn't last very long) recalls Gigli and keeps people out of the theaters, then that's unfortunate, since Jersey Girl has about as much in common with Gigli as Gigli had with The House of Mirth. An elegant tribute to fatherhood and growing up (in the figurative sense), the film never sacrifices its characters at the altar of the cheap laugh -- not even when it's indulging in some stunt casting or deus ex machina plotting. This is really a perfect direction for Smith's career, one that combines what made him famous with what makes a good movie.

Smith could not, however, resist casting Ben Affleck as his leading man -- but eh, maybe it's for the best. I don't have to be a fan to know that he has smirking arrogance down pat, and that's an excellent starting point for his role as a hotshot New York music publicist who falls from his pedestal of money and power when his new wife Gertie (Lopez) dies in childbirth. Overwhelmed by taking care of his daughter, grieving for his lost wife and keeping up with his demanding job, Ollie Trinke (for that, dear reader, is his name) has an outburst and insults his up-and-coming client (Will Smith!) at a press conference. Despondent and out of work, Ollie moves into his father's (George Carlin) New Jersey home and takes a job with him in construction.

Seven years later, Ollie hasn't been promoted, hasn't made any financial progress, and hasn't had sex since his wife's death. Little Gertie (Raquel Castro) sure has grown up, though, filled with energy, and spunk, and a tentative adoration for her father. At the video store, Ollie meets a girl (Liv Tyler), who seems to be interested in him, if only as a clinical case. They strike up a friendship centered around Gertie; meanwhile, an old co-worker (Jason Biggs) comes up with an opportunity for Ollie to get his old New York job back.

Kevin Smith is working with one foot outside Hollywood formula and one foot firmly planted in the middle of it. He tugs at the bonds of convention without ever winning or giving in. His soundtrack is filled with pop songs, and the plot outline suggests one of those movies where a curmudgeon gradually warms up to an incorrigible little tyke and bags the hot girl in the process. But Smith isn't interested in Ollie Trinkie's transformation -- he loves his daughter from the very first day, and the shifting of priorities that does take place is borne not of Gertie's impossible cuteness but mostly of genuine self-reflection, and a little help from a certain movie star.

The actors find the perfect note and hold it. Carlin manages a sort of jovial vulgarity -- never before has the phrase "That's all horseshit" sounded so loving. Liv Tyler here stumbles upon something entirely new for her -- she's as radiant and charismatic as Cameron Diaz, but sans the cloying puppy-dog aspect of that actress' personality. Her character doesn't have very much screentime, but Smith nonetheless gives her an arc and the best payoff one can hope for.

The ending, most remarkable for what it doesn't do, proved to me that though Smith might by now be entrenched in the Hollywood machine, he is a filmmaker with his own voice and the freedom to go his own way. But most importantly, he is a filmmaker.