User Reviews

I can't think or a more trite plot than this film. Nothing but cliches and stereotypes in the oldest poor girl meets arogant boy story. Yet, this was something that was touching, sensitive and if I dare say, transcendent.

Jami Gertz portrayal of Toby was perfection. The rest of the casting was also perfectly on target. Shucks, even the pre-schooler who told Toby that the "boys were being nuts" was terrific.

I suppose direction had much to do with the effectiveness of this film. Each character only existed in the context of their relationships with other characters. They were individuals, but they were never more than who they were in the film.

This was a rare and beautiful piece of work.

I saw this movie a few years ago and I loved it , and it gave me all these butterflies.I saw it again today and it still has the same effect on me, as a matter of fact I felt it more and more, and yes it still DOES give me butterflies,just watching it. It didn't differ, I thought it would be like everything else in life, you remember it better than it really was, but it was just as good.Basically it's a love story about 2 different people who aren't really as different as they think , a Jersy girl who always dreams of the city and moving up and a city boy who was once from the Bronx and did move up and would do anything to never go back. It's romantic, sweet, funny, and heartfelt. I think it's most girls fairy tale in real life setting. It'll either make you feel good or it'll make you want to cry, but either way it's great Friday night movie.

Dylan Mcdermott fans must see this movie. The characters are not terribly complex or dynamic, but who cares....ITS A CHICK FLICK! Toby and Sal are sweet and romantic and if your a lover of girl movies, this one is a must see. Warm hearted and makes for a great stay at home movie night.

First I don't see why people are being hard on this film me personally I loved it the first time when I saw it I was only 14 and today am 27 and I still can't get over this film.Dylan McDermott is hot as ever and he plays his character really well and Jami Gertz is perfect in this role and every time I see this film I get a lot of emotion. seriously this movie is great its a love story about two people from different world who meets and falls in love. so please give this movie a chance I recommender to those who are sensitive its a nice love story with a happy ending. so that is why I give it a 10 out of 10 I still get goosebumps when I watch it

I just saw this movie for the first time yesterday and I must say it was SWEET! I absolutely adored it - romantic, funny and with a great ending. PLUS - girls - super Practice hottie Dylan McDermott is the leading man...WHO could ask for more????? Two thumbs up!

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?

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"

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.

I find the movie "Jersey Girl" quite entertaining. I first saw it when I was sad and depressed. After seeing it, I wasn't sad anymore. It uplifted my thoughts and feelings, and I fell in love with the movie. I'd even go one step further and say, I think it is better than Dirty Dancing. Now, Dirty Dancing was my favorite all-time video, but, after seeing Jersey Girl, I switched gears. I recommend this video to any girl who is feeling down in the dumps. I'd also like to add that Dylan McDermott in this movie is H-O-T-T, HOT!!!!!!!!!! Girls, you even get to see a glimpse of his butt. I recommend this movie. As a matter of fact, my boyfriend and I are going to rent this movie tonight. I recommend this movie.

My review was written in July 1992 after watching the film at a Midtown Manhattan screening room.

Jamie Gertz gives a winning performance in "Jersey Girl", an unoriginal variation on such Italo-Yank romances as "Moonstruck". Not sharp enough to create much box office action, pic has the potential to warm the hearts of ancillary viewers, especially young women.

Just opened in England but not scheduled for American release until 1993, pic is an unusual low-budget entry backed by Interscope, which ordinarily delivers major product like the "Three Men and a Baby" pics.

It also marks a radical change of pace for indie director David Burton Morris ("Patti Rocks"), who handles the romance well but is ultimately done in by too much corn in Gina Wendkos's script.

Gertz is the prototypical young woman from New Jersey, living with her dad Joe Bologna (who fears her becoming an old maid) and working in a day care center. She spends much of her time hanging out at the local Bendix Diner with her pals Aida Turturro, Molly Price and Star Jasper.

Wendkos's main theme is that old standby: get out of your provincial rut and blossom. Instead of the "Working Girl" approach, Gertz takes a more old-fashioned route, trying to win some young hunk from Manhattan.

Staking her VW Beetle out in a Mercedes dealer lot, she "meets cute" with Dylan McDermott, a successful young graphics salesman. Gertz gets off on the wrong foot by causing a car accident that results in $6,300 damage to his new Mercedes, and she doesn't even have insurance. Her persistence pays off, however. When McDermott's blonde goddess girlfriend (Sheryl Lee) dumps him, he calls Gertz for a date. They soon end up in the sack, but Gertz is soon given the brush-off.

At this point, what has been a heartwarming picture about Gertz's Pollyanna-esque search for love becomes formula filmmaking. McDermott, as an Italian guy from Queens, is interested only in the fast-track of wealth and status, so he drops Gertz, who represents what he's left behind.

Unlike Mike Nichols' "Working Girl", which embraced the '80s ethos of success, "Jersey Girl" unconvincingly opts out of the rat race. McDermott rather arbitrarily becomes fed up with snooty girlfriend Lee and his back-stabbing boss, chucks his $100,000-plus job and wins back Gertz.

Movie audiences, especially women identifying with Gertz, might swallow some of this, but when McDermott proves his love to her by trashing his Mercedes, enough is enough.

Very attractively lensed by Ron Fortunato, Gertz shows a big talent in her first top-billed film appearance. McDermoot certainly looks the part but operates a notch lower, unwisely using a vocal timbre that recalls too closely Richard Gere in "Pretty Woman".

As tough-talking buddy Cookie, Molly Price is a terrific scene-stealer, with good support from gal pals Turturro and Jasper. Tech credits are good without any flamboyance or strong sense of style. A song score including tunes by local fave John Cafferty is effective.

This is one of the best romantic dramas. The formula is simple: Man and woman from opposite sides of the track, but the heart displayed by the director and screenwriter, coupled with the great acting, give this movie a compelling and honest vitality that is irresistible. Great performances by Jami Gertz, Joe Bologna, Sheryl Lee and a solid performance by Dylan McDermott are strongly supported by a pacing and dynamic by director David Morris that keeps things unpredictable, yet comprehensible. The acting job done by Toby's three friends was commendable, too. One tactic that helped make this movie so effective was the displays of open-heartedness when we least expect it: a: McDermott's line "I almost forgot to tell you how beautiful you look in that dress", after they had had a big argument and all seemed lost. b: Bologna's dialogue at dinner, with Toby, toward the end of the picture, when he told her how perfect she is and always was, in his eyes. Bologna had me laughing out loud at times. I cheered at the end, when Gertz issued a one-word response to McDermott: "Me." That was perfect. Great soundtrack, too.

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!

Mega cheesey movie full of ugly fashion, bad hair, and weak sentiment. You can tell this was a poor man's Pretty Woman. I didn't have high hopes going into it but I'm finding myself increasingly annoyed by the protagonist. Toby is somehow more childish than the kids she babysits! She latches onto the idea that getting a successful boyfriend will somehow progress her own life with virtually no effort on her part, other than maybe obsessively pursuing and seducing a complete stranger. I guess that's where the fairy tale nonsense comes into play, that we're all hoping for some miracle love to make us feel "complete" or at least in Toby's case financially endowed because it's her primary motivator. She wants to look expensive and like she's going somewhere but the only place she'll be going is to wherever her boyfriend goes. It's a sad rather sexist and not terribly romantic narrative. It's not helped at all by the fact that her would be boyfriend Sal is as class obsessed and shallow as she is. Not to mention there aren't very likeable qualities in either character as people. I felt like Toby's friends were far more interesting in the meager minutes of screen time they had, and I would've preferred seeing each individual woman's backstory than anything to do with Toby! I want to know what makes Cookie so tough, why Dottie hasn't ever had an orgasm, or if the plus size lady will find love and respect? I guess I wanted to see something more realistic and not so Hallmark-esque. It's passable for a rainy day but I'll never come back to it.

Wow. I was only able to make it through 15 or 20 minutes of this dog before I gave up. Stupid, not funny. Inane is probably the best description for this.

I quoted the trailer's final line because there really is no better synopsis of this movie than that line. Jami Gertz was always the quintessential Italian princess and or the annoying Jewish princess. She was perfect at both and in this movie she excels. The coming of age for a Jersey girl tired of the same old same old with her beloved friends. She's lower middle class and she knows it. She doesn't fall for Sal (Dylan McDermott) because she's looking to socially climb. She falls hard because she's attracted to him and she knows inherently he changed himself for the better which is all she wishes to do, and to find true love. McDermott is really a good actor as we found out when he became the ultra conflicted lead lawyer in The Practice. As a younger performer here he shows his acting chops as a NY nouveau riche kid from the lower class who, Toby helps open his eyes to the idea that he shouldn't be embarrassed at his beginnings around his rich socialite friends and ex-girlfriend. It's a terrific takeoff of the Cinderella story.

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 ...

This movie would have to take the cake for one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I promise that you will become stupider after watching the movie. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands and you can't think of anything else to do, I wouldn't bother seeing this mindless flick.

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?

I love Dylan McDermott and that's how I found this movie. It's such a cute movie , definitely nothing you have to think through but just one to sit and relax thru. They were spot on about some varying personalities and I think we can all match a few of them to people we've actually met in our life. Jami Gertz does a great job as the head-over-heels girl in love pursuing her interest, even though I went thru that stage at 15 instead of in my 20s... lol. If you like simple romantic movies like Maid in Manhattan, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, etc you'll love this one too. It will definitely take you back to the time you had a HUGE crush on someone.