Each month, one of our writers will be sharing movies that were set and/or shot near where they have lived as a personal lens into these films…

by Matt McCafferty, Staff Writer

New Jersey gets picked on a lot. People refer to it as “Dirty Jersey” and all kinds of other names. I was born and raised in South Jersey. Mullica Hill is primarily where I grew up. On those joke maps that go around on social media, my area of South Jersey is described as “Pretty Much Alabama.” None of the New Jersey jokes bother me. I love living here. I moved away for a while after college and came back for family like most people do in the area. I’ve embraced its quirks over the years and I’ve found it to be a great place to raise a family. As for it being a great place to make movies, I can’t say that’s necessarily true.  

If you exclude the Atlantic City area, the list of movies filmed in South Jersey is really short. On that really short list is Kevin Smith’s 2004 romantic comedy, Jersey Girl. Berlin, Cherry Hill and Paulsboro were the main shooting locations in the area. Smith himself is from Highlands, NJ, which is what he calls the town in the movie (most of which is actually Paulsboro). Anyone who is slightly familiar with Smith knows that he regularly promotes the Garden State as a great place to live. Even now on the date of this writing, he’s back in NJ to film Clerks III. With all that said, his decision to go with South Jersey locations for Jersey Girl was still a pretty big surprise at the time. I’m not sure what led to that decision, but I’m happy it played out the way it did.

None of the shooting locations were technically in my hometown of Mullica Hill. However, the main locations (the high school and municipal building were two of the big ones) were as close to me as any major movie has ever come. Paulsboro was just a couple towns over from me. The fact that Smith chose Paulsboro was especially exciting to me back in 2002. I was a junior in high school at the time with very few responsibilities in my life. It was fun to go driving around with friends in search of shooting locations. Never ended up getting on a set or anything like that, but it was exciting to see the giant camera cranes and all the other equipment set up in the cemetery. 

Speaking of filming in the cemetery, this is for sure Kevin Smith’s most emotional movie to date. He really went for it by hitting us with the big gut-wrenching scene early on in the film. Up to this point in his career, he hadn’t tackled anything quite this serious. With Jersey Girl, he took his first venture outside of the View Askewniverse by writing a story that managed to be pretty weighty, all the while still playing out like that of your typical light and breezy romcom. A romcom that might have been a much bigger hit had it been created sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. The feel of this film is very much like that of a John Hughes movie — someone Smith has referenced as an influence in the past.

A quick recap for those who haven’t seen it in a while, Jersey Girl stars Ben Affleck as Ollie Trinke, a big-time New York music publicist who put work ahead of everything before he met his soon-to-be wife, Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez). Shortly after getting married, the two of them prepared for the birth of their first child. Here’s where Smith takes his shot at hitting on some deeper emotional beats. Gertrude dies during childbirth due to an aneurysm. Ollie is left to juggle his new life of being a father to his daughter Gertie (Raquel Castro) while also trying to maintain his “New York life” as a publicist for big name artists. 

At the time of its release, most of the attention swirling around this movie was about the whole Bennifer thing. Gigli also came out the year before. So from a publicity standpoint, the movie itself didn’t have a lot of good things going for it. I’ll admit that I remember getting sucked into that cloud of negativity when I first saw it. Basically, I never gave it a fair chance right from the get-go. I immediately thought of it as Smith’s worst movie. A far cry from the creative comedies he put out up to that point. But now, a little over 17 years later, I’d rate it near the top of his work. Jersey Girl is conventional for sure in its structure, but that doesn't mean it’s not good. Separated now from all the negative vibes that were going on at that time, the film stands strong as one of Smith’s most sincere efforts. 

At times, it does feel like Smith goes a little too far with the sentimental approach that he brought to the film. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that he created some truly heartbreaking scenes. There are plenty of deep, emotional conversations that actually hit pretty hard. Again, you can feel Smith pressing a bit when it comes to tugging at your heart strings, but most of those moments worked for me more often than not. It’s not just the dynamic between Ollie and

Gertie as father and daughter that carries all the emotional weight, but it’s also with George Carlin as Ollie’s dad and Liv Tyler as Ollie’s new girlfriend. Carlin was especially great as the alcoholic father who also happened to be the most reliable person for Ollie to lean on for help after his wife’s death. It’s no surprise that Carlin had the comedic chops that fit in easily with Smith’s style of humor. He already showed us that in Dogma. The bigger surprise was that his dramatic delivery was just as good.

Jersey Girl is not used as a bragging right by most people in South Jersey. Most people both inside and outside of New Jersey view it as a flop and one of Smith’s lesser films. I do hope that narrative changes over time as people go back to revisit it like I have. Don’t let its formulaic romcom structure fool you. It’s still an enjoyable watch with some of the best writing Smith has done in his career.