Jersey Girl (2004) and She's Having a Baby (1988)

JERSEY GIRL (2004)

Writer/Director:  Kevin Smith

The Quote I Quote Most Often:   “You love me all the way to the moon and back down to the dirt.”  ~ Will Smith

Favorite Quote This Time Around:  “You’re riding in the Batmobile.  How cool is that?” 

 ~ Ollie Trinke (played by Ben Affleck, the new Batman)

Character I Most Identify With:  Ollie Trinke, because I know exactly how it feels to fight with a

seven-year-old

Nod to John Hughes:  Kevin Smith patterned this movie from John Hughes’s She’s Having a Baby.

Now that I have successfully survived childbirth, I was able to watch Jersey Girl.  If you’ve seen the beginning of this movie you will understand why I couldn’t watch it antepartum.  This movie is extremely different in tone from Smith’s previous movies.  It’s pretty clear that getting married and having a kid softened old Kev.  

And that’s what having kids does to us, doesn’t it?  It softens us and rearranges our priorities.  I once read that to have a child was “to forever have your heart walking around outside your body.”  That’s pretty much what this movie is all about.  It’s also about making peace with living in the suburbs, a theme I love and one found in She’s Having a Baby.  The protagonists in both of these movies have big dreams and feel like their lives are hindered by living in the suburbs.  

Sometimes living in the suburbs can make your life seem small.  You live in any old house on any old street and you’re pretty much doing what everyone else is doing.  Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mean parenting.  Parenting is a big, important job filled with purpose, but sometimes the lawn mowing and the grocery shopping and the dish washing all feel a little mundane.

Ollie Tinke makes peace with the suburbs by sacrificing the big, glitzy career for staying in Jersey for his daughter, which ultimately helps him open his life to a new dream.  My dream has always been three-fold: to be a teacher, to be a mom, and to be a published author.  I achieved one and two, but was so afraid of failing at number three that I kept sabotaging my efforts.  Being a parent, however, helped me reclaim that dream.  I never want to tell my kids, “Mom had a dream once, but she was too afraid to try.”  If I want my kids to pursue their own dreams, I have to be willing to set the example.  So even though I have THREE kids now, and a full-time job, and a husband, and two dogs, and I live in the suburbs, I’m going to keep writing and keep putting my writing out there.  I’m going to keep dreaming.

And just for funsies, here is my review of She’s Having a Baby from 2009, which essentially says the same thing:

Tribute to John Hughes: She's Having a Baby

August 30, 2009 at 4:23pm

She’s Having a Baby (1988)

Favorite Quote: “People don’t mature anymore. They stay jackasses all their lives.” ~ Grandfather

Character I Most Identify With: Jefferson Edward Briggs (Jake) 

I had never seen this movie before now. I have been meaning to see it for a long time because Kevin Smith has said that this is his favorite of the John Hughes movies. He patterned “Jersey Girl” after it. I’m glad I haven’t seen it until now. Just as “The Breakfast Club” spoke to me as a teenager, this movie speaks to me as a new parent – and aspiring writer.

I am a sucker for movies and novels about writers. For as long as I can remember, and probably even before that, I have identified myself as a writer. Yet, until very recently, I didn’t actually write, at least not regularly. I’ve tried to write lots of times, but I give up after a few days in a fit of despair. Nothing I wrote ever seemed good enough to keep going.

In “She’s Having a Baby,” Jake writes all the time, but has nothing to say. That is, until he has a baby. I always felt like I had something to say, but rarely wrote. That is, until I had a couple of babies and no real time to write. This isn’t coincidence. Like Jake, it is because of my babies that I have become a writer. It doesn’t matter anymore if my writing is no good. It doesn’t matter whether or not my writing ever sees the light of day. What matters is that I try. It has always been my dream to write a novel and try to have it published. I’m attempting it now, because I never ever want my children to give up on their dreams. I’m writing now because I have to be the example for them that you can still pursue your dreams even if you live in the suburbs.