THE ‘JERSEY’ GUY

March 18, 2004 — TO tell the truth, this movie inspires me to be a father as much as ‘Armageddon’ inspired me to become an oil-rigger / astronaut! It’s a great role, but it’s just a role.” So says Ben Affleck in response to the unimaginative question, does his role as a doting dad in his new film “Jersey Girl” lead him to thoughts of diapers and domesticity?

Affleck, disarmingly candid, says that “Jersey Girl,” made with his friend and frequent director Kevin Smith, is an “actor’s movie. It’s performance-driven, as opposed to movies in which the actor is . . . incidental.”

This tale of a p.r. man who makes the fatal mistake of dissing his client – Will Smith! – publicly, gives Affleck the opportunity to emote. He is not a stock, stoic, heroic figure. Ben, at his best on-screen, is kind of a mess. The closer his characters are to an emotional crisis, the better he is. Here he performs colorfully with young Raquel Castro as his daughter, and Liv Tyler, extraordinarily appealing, as the woman who wants to bring a little oomph back in his life. Also excellent is George Carlin as his dad.

“Jersey Girl” is a leap for indie god Smith, who has guided Ben through “Chasing Amy” and “Dogma.” The director has attempted to keep his cutting edge, while confronting sentimental issues – precocious children, aging parents, dying spouses – all in the context of a more mainstream Hollywood-type film. Affleck says, “This certainly reflects Kevin’s change of life. We met when we were both about 23, before ‘Chasing Amy.’ A lot of what was on our mind was sex – getting it, the history of it, figuring it out. ‘Jersey Girl’ represents his maturing.” And Ben’s maturing? A hearty laugh – “Well, maybe I’m not as evolved yet!” Maybe not, but he did give us a fascinating analysis of recent events, insights he hasn’t offered elsewhere.

“Jersey Girl” features 12 minutes of Jennifer Lopez. Then she’s gone. This is not “Gigli,” of which Ben says today, “Well, there you had a film that was affected by, and informed by, the off-screen lives of its participants. The original film was dark and weird and kind of surreal. Then, as Jennifer and I became closer, and the publicity got out of hand, the studio decided it wanted a ‘Ben ‘n’ Jen’ comedy – as if there had been a precedent for such a thing to begin with! So, we had to go back for reshoots, to conform to an image we barely knew we had.

“But that was all part of the absurdity of the thing. And as bad as it got, I did appreciate being in the eye of the hurricane, a first-person perspective on a pop-culture phenomenon, which is a ridiculous way to refer to a personal relationship that mattered. And I thought I’d seen the worst of that when I broke up with Gwyneth [Paltrow]! But Jennifer and I sort of fit into the zeitgeist of the moment. They had to, metaphorically, ‘build new sets’ for our affair. I felt like I wore a hair shirt for a while, but we both got out alive.”

And what’s next for Ben? “As soon as this ‘Jersey Girl” junketing is over, I’m taking off. Four months. I’m going to travel and clear my head. There’s some tentative plan to to do a movie called ‘Glory Road,’ but I don’t want to think about work right now. I don’t want to, nor do I have to, worry my career into the ground – when’s the next job?”

No more matinee-idol, pop-culture sizzle? “No, please!” Ben says. “The lucky thing is, the press and the public have such short attention spans. One minute it’s me and Jen, the next, Janet Jackson’s breast . . . ”

Smith fears controversy will also hurt his latest flick, the romantic comedy Jersey Girl, which reunites Ben Affleck and ex-love Jennifer Lopez for the first time since Gigli crashed and burned. “I have to accept the fact that [Jersey Girl] will never be a No. 1 film because people are predisposed to think it is a Ben and Jen [vehicle],” he laments. “They are just not going to turn out because they all hated Gigli so much, even though nobody saw it.

“I have the benefit of knowing that the movie is not about those two,” adds Smith, referring to the fact that Jersey Girl really focuses on the relationship between Affleck and his on-screen daughter, played by Raquel Castro. “Now if Ben and the kid break up, I’ve got problems. But then again, if he and the kid date, I’ve got bigger problems.”

JERSEY GIRL- New Yorker Ollie Trinke’s (Ben Affleck) life goes into the toilet when he finds himself a single father, out of work, and living back at home with his dad (George Carlin) in a small town in New Jersey. As years pass and he settles into the routines of manual labor and evenings spent watching cartoons with his daughter, he finds himself yearning for a chance to return to the hustle of his former life. Kevin Smith’s newest film (and undoubtedly his best looking yet) is something of a departure as it leaves the slapstick behind. It feels almost like Woody Allen lite–although at times a little sappy– as a dramatic comedy about real people. Some of his hardcore fans will be upset by the stylistic change, but Smith has created a likeable paean to parenting and children, and to accepting the life you have instead of always chasing after the past. And the characters, Liv Tyler’s notwithstanding, are familiar, three-dimensional people… like your friends and neighbors. And it still has plenty of laughs. No, it’s not perfect– a little cheesy, even saccharine perhaps. But it’s still a fine movie from a director who, after five movies, has finally grown up. (B ) –Ben Beard