10 Famous Movies That Screwed Up The Most Important Part
7. Jersey Girl - Its Target Audience
Jersey Girl is an example of a filmmaker giving his audience a bit too much credit. Following the insane, foul-mouthed, self-referential Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Kevin Smith went on to write and direct his most 'mature' film, Jersey Girl. It's not mature in the sense that it features a lot of swearing or gross out humor, but mature in that it refined a lot of what Kevin Smith was good at and packaged it in a way that people who weren't just his core fans would enjoy - Kevin Smith 'grew up'. His audience, not so much. It was clear Smith was trying to tell a light hearted story about some heavy handed things like personal sacrifice, the loss of a loved one, and how to find romance after the love your life passes away, while still wrapping it in his signature snappy dialog and esoteric movie references. The problem is that in 2004 his fans probably didn't find the idea of a single guy raising a daughter he may subtly resent, while contending with an existential crisis about what he truly wants out of life, to be very appealing. Of course a decade later, now that most of Smith's audience is fully grown and has either graduated or flunked out of college, started a family or lost a love one, the odds are Jersey Girl holds a bit more substance for them now than it did in 2004. Ultimately Kevin Smith made a great movie none of his fans really wanted to see or wanted him to make - a job Judd Apatow happily swung in and took off his hands. While writing with your audience at the forefront of your mind is a great way to go insane, writing without them in mind at all, can result in a movie that's good, but isn't really for anyone. Kevin Smith fans wanted Kevin Smith stuff. Vulgarity, offensive banter, Jay & Silent Bob, poop monsters, and Jersey Girl had very little of that. if Kevin Smith's one job as a filmmaker is to make a movie people want to see, he failed. Though as far as failures go, you could do a lot worse than Jersey Girl.
