Jersey Girl (2004)

This movie is not to be confused with the Jamie Getz starrer of the same title from the early 90's which was not exactly memorable, and I wasn't expecting much better from this one which Kevin Smith shot at the height of the Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck nonsense -- in fact I expected it to be awful.  The fact that it wasn't is probably because Lopez's character is killed off within the first few minutes and while Affleck is one of the more wooden actors around, Smith manages to bring something likeable out of his performances in all of the films they have done together.  Mind you it's a pretty sloppy story of widower Ben trying to raise his daughter after his wife dies in child-birth, having lost his high-powered job, and only having assistance initially from his working-class Dad and his father's two best friends (kind of a middle-aged Jay and Silent Bob).  I think this was Smith's attempt to make a more family-friendly movie, since he is now a family man himself, but there is always something just a little bit subversive in everything that he touches.  Thank goodness for that certain something here; it gave what could have been a slushfest a bit of edge.