Jersey Girl
Jersey Girl
PG-13 | 01 August 1992 (USA)
Jersey Girl Trailers

A working girl from New Jersey looks for love with a fast-lane Manhattan salesman from Queens.

Reviews
Real World

The plot for this movie is really awful that I decided to contribute my 2 cents. I think this movie is truly a fantasy movie for the women who grew up in trailers in this country. Which guy in his right mind would actually give up his career that he worked so hard all his life for just for some low-class,broke, uneducated woman that ran into his $70,000 car? Initially, the guy didn't want anything to do with her, but she insisted on calling the guy constantly and following him to the restaurant, which is considered stalking. On top of that, this movie portrayed this woman to be a "sweet, innocent" working class girl from Jersey who is not after his money? Who are they kidding here?

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wmass-1

The Jersey Girl of 1992 (not to be confused with the Jersey Girl of 2004 — I have seen both) gets kudos for being a warm, funny, and entertaining romantic comedy. As a native New Jerseyan of Italian ancestry who spent the first ten years of his life in Hackensack, however, I had mixed feelings about the film's portrayal of middle class New Jersey culture.Sometimes they hit the nail on the head and I smiled with nostalgic recognition, as when Toby comes home with a grocery bag with a loaf of Italian bread sticking out of it — that's an everyday Jersey occurrence. Ditto for her apartment above Foschini's bakery and a storefront Italian shop that sold ravioli and Italian sausage. Even the Bendix Diner evoked some nostalgia, but the producers may not have realized it is an anachronism. Most Jersey Diners no longer fit the 1950s stainless steel model — most now have been expanded into Mediterranean-styled restaurants that basically look like Denny's but still have traditional diner food like Taylor Pork Roll sandwiches and home fries.Most disturbing, though, was the portrayal of working class Jersey females as dumb bimbos who talk like grammar school dropouts and dress like prostitutes. Sure, I saw a few of those types from cities like Newark and Jersey City back in the '60s, but they are a thing of the past. Even urban areas of New Jersey like Hoboken and Jersey City have become too gentrified to reinforce a culture of gum chewing, slutty dressing bimbos. And Hackensack, where the story takes place, has become more affluent in recent years than it was when I grew up there in the 50s. My second grade teacher in Hackensack taught us how to pronounce words correctly, not like the girls in the movie who sound more like they're from Brooklyn.And where on earth did the writers get the idea that people in New Jersey humbly look to New Yorkers as something to emulate? Most people I grew up with in Bergen County, looked DOWN on New Yorkers, especially the people from "the Boroughs." Maybe the writers should have read the demographics showing New Jersey is perennially tied with Connecticut as number one (or two) in the U.S. in per capita income.These things didn't affect my enjoyment of the movie. They just made me think that the production staff was composed of typically ignorant and arrogant New Yorkers. You know, those jerks who come over to Jersey and drive below the speed limit in the left lane and refuse to move over as NJ law requires!

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BreakingDaylight

OK, so I sort of wondered at the title before the movie started, i mean, what, i never new Jersey was considered something like the country, but, go figure. It's the classic boy meets girl, girl wrecks boy's car, boy hates girl, girl falls in love with boy, boy falls in love with girl, girl hates boy, girl falls back in love with boy, and they all live happily ever after, well, we would assume. Overall, it was quite entertaining, i mean, it's not a totally original master piece or anything, but quite entertaining. I liked the fact that Toby (Gertz character)in th end, did not change her whole existent just to be someone she's not,was her own person, and had her own beliefs and the fact that she's not just some girl who went around and changed her whole life for a guy, no matter how rich, handsome or successful he was. And McDermott's character was...really complex, but I guess in a way, they made a cute couple, though the ending with water sprinkling down at them and the sloppy kiss, yeah, maybe they should have cut that scene. But overall, not too bad, a fairly entertaining film.

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Karen Green (klg19)

Here's the odd thing about this quirky little film -- its "happy ending" completely undercuts the happy ending the heroine is looking for.Toby (Gertz) is a Jersey Girl looking for a GQ kind of guy -- a non-Guido with money, nice clothes and good manners who will take her away from it all. Sal (McDermott) is a Queens Guy who's made it big in Manhattan and is dating Social Register material. Toby wants Sal, Sal wants Society, but in the end Toby and Sal get each other. But what happens in order for this to occur? Sal trashes his well-paying career, is humiliated by his girlfriend, intentionally wrecks the Mercedes that first caught Toby's eye,and probably won't long be hanging on to that nice apartment overlooking Central Park. He rejects what it takes to be Manhattan material in order to be with his Jersey Girl -- he re-embraces his Queens roots.So how does this make him different than the Guidos Toby has been fleeing in the first place? Are we supposed to believe that they're what she really wanted all along, now that she's ended up with one?The toughest thing about this for me was the endless cliche about what Jersey Girls are like in the first place. I defy anyone to find a 20-something in, say, Short Hills NJ who would dress, act, talk, think like the stereotypes depicted in the film. It's a movie about Jersey Girls with a kind of Philip Roth-like self-hatred about being from Jersey. Toby isn't smarter or more stylish than her friends -- she just wants someone with money. That is supposed to ennoble her? In the end, she doesn't get the guy with the money anyway -- perhaps as fitting punishment for her greediness? If so, then who's the heroine of this movie, anyway?

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