Jersey Girl (1992)

It might have been nice if this had been a romantic comedy, but it wasn't funny at all, and pretty much just lame - Jamie Gertz/Toby is basically this stalker that goes after Sal/Dylan McDermont. The wholemovie leads you to believe that anyone that lives in Jersey is just anobody that needs a man to make life better while working dead-end jobsand not being able to make anything of themselves. This movie may have been made in 1993, but the girls in it all dress like the 80s with crazy bangles and big hair, and Jamie Gertz's accent made me want to slap someone. The only thing memorable about this movie is that it made me not want to remember it at all - I wish I could take back the amount of time I spent watching it and go watch something else ...

On the surface of it, this movie is nothing special. However, there is something about the direction and the perfect casting that sways you to believe it. There are moments when you are wondering where the story will lead (but you're usually wrong) and the whole focus is on something that touches us all, whether we're from New Jersey, New York, London or Namibia: class, upbringing, love and prejudice, friendship, loyalty, and truth. Toby (Jami Gertz) plays a straightforward, if somewhat naive, go-getter with a big heart, and manages to steer clear of our disbelief, perhaps anchored somewhat by her down-to-earth girl buddies. The romance is touching, the bitter conflict of Sal's (Dylan McDermott) 'correct' relationship is deftly portrayed, and, sorry, but I have to say it, Gertz's beauty is dominant (but hey, I'm just a bloke). Lightweight with a Big Message for us all.

Okay, so Jersey Girl is supposed to be one of those Working Girl/Pretty Woman kind of releases from the burger diners, hoop earings, and thick accents and into a world of high class. Tobey, Jamie Gertz's character is set on changing her lifestyle, preferably by finding herself a man to take her away from it all. Dylan McDermott plays that man. He's the slick corporate guy that Tobey's been looking for. She wrecks his car, gets all obsessive about her alleged destiny man, and boom, you have a love story that ends with a sloppy sewer water kiss. Too bad this love story sucks. I've seen Jamie Gertz in a lot better things, and I hardly think of Dylan McDermott as any kind of a lover, he was just another one of those immature guys who's too superficial to care about anything like Rob Lowe's character in About Last Night... If your looking for a girl who wants to be 'movin' on up' your best bet is Working Girl (moving on up from secretary to boss in the financial district) and Pretty Woman (moving on up from prostitute to the Madame of Rodeo Drive) and those kinds of things. Jersey Girl is just a waste of time. I might've like it if it had some good humor to it, at least, but it wasn't even funny.

Jersey Girl is a great romantic comedy. The tagline calls it a Cinderella Story With Big Hair and that it is, but Jamie Gertz's Tobey gets the man of her dreams without the help of a fairy godmother. Tobey lives in New Jersey and dreams of a better life that doesn't include her dead end job and evenings at the Bendix diner with her girlfriends. She thinks she'll find that better life by picking up a guy at the local Mercedes dealer...see the movie to find out what happens. As the opening credit song states "Jersey Groove, She's got a Jersey Groove"