This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Jersey Girl
Plot Overview
Eighteen-year-old, pregnant, homeless, Jersey girl Connie Doyle (Ricki Lake) gets her identity switched with rich, dead, pregnant woman Patricia Winterbourne (Susan Haskell) who with her now deceased husband Hugh (Brendan Fraser,) was on her way to meet Hugh's moneyed Bostonian kin, and then their train derailed killing them. Everyone is just all too helpful to the putative “widow” giving her time to ponder what's best for her poor newborn. Courtesy Donald E. Westgate:
Years ago there was a show on Broadway called Beyond the Fringe and they did a bit from it on television. … The bit was a monologue by an English miner, and at one point he said something like, “In my childhood I wasn't surrounded by the trappings of luxury, I was surrounded by the trappings of poverty. My problem is I had the wrong trappings.” (78)
By the time the police get involved (“You guys really gotta learn to wait for lawyers”) a deception is pretty well under way (“I'm not exactly Miss Honesty in this”), and baby Hughie is learning new words (“Can you say, ‘Five to Ten’?”)
Ideology
The Winterbourne
family is Catholic, and Connie is woefully unfamiliar with
their Christian statement of faith. Hugh and Patricia had got
married in Paris, presenting Hugh's family with a fait accompli now
that they suppose it was a mixed marriage. The new
“Patricia” is about to marry Hugh's twin brother Bill
(Brendan Frase) entering a mixed marriage under the church's scrutiny.
Conventional wisdom has it that if a body is already
married to a non-Christian when the former converts, he is allowed
to stay with her and try to save her. She's a nice girl to begin
with, otherwise he wouldn't have married her. But a Christian
should not select a non-Christian for a mate, because she's a
bitch. I can't help but think we're not comparing apples with
apples here. We can do better.
In
answer to the Corinthians' questions
regarding the mixed marriages they were entering into during his
preaching, the apostle Paul writes of same as an occasion for
Christian influence on the unbelieving spouse, (1Cor. 7:16) “For what knowest
thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest
thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” Paul was not
doing any matchmaking, but let us try ourselves for an
apple-to-apple comparison. A man has two daughters, say, and being
just and fair he lines up matches of equal integrity for both of them.
Daughter A is to get married in June and daughter B June the
following year. This is during the two year stint when Paul is
preaching nearby. Before B is wed, though, the sisters attend a
meeting and become Christians. A is obligated to try to convert her
spouse, and B wanting to follow suit determines to go ahead and marry her
guy, too, and try to convert him as well. He isn't any worse to start off
with than her sister's husband was for her. They are like two peas in a
pod, one sister following in the other's footsteps.
The apostle's authority
was already expressed in: (1Cor.
3:21-22) “For all things are yours; Whether …
the world, … or things present, or things to come; all are
your's.” Sister A's husband of the world is hers to keep
(“things present”) and so is sister B's husband
“to come,” as long as they are willing as we suppose
they are. By apostolic decree, then, a Christian is allowed to
enter a mixed marriage if that's what they want. Likewise, in
this high living movie the sky is the limit. Christianity has now
permeated our culture since Paul's day and most Christians naturally want
to marry each other, but we do find the occasional exception.
Paul goes on to say, (1Cor. 7:32-33) “But I would have you without carefulness [fretting]. He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord: But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife.” That's just naturally the way things are. Christian men have competing interests when they marry. (1Cor. 7:29-31) “But this I say, brethren, the time is short: it remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; And they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; And they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.” Hugh lived up to this. When his banker dad wanted to pass the reigns of his business on to his twins, Hugh let his brother have them. He lived a bohemian life and then he got married, which didn't overly change him. He graciously paid for the homeless woman's ticket on the train. She later had this to say: “There was a kindness about him.” He did his bit to exemplify Christian charity.
The woman also tends to change her priorities when she's getting
married. (1Cor. 7:34)
“There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The
unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be
holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for
the things of the world, how she may please her husband.” If
a widow, say, wants to remarry, she need not limit herself to
selecting a near kinsman for inheritance considerations as
Jewish women did in the Old Testament; they had to per their
levirate custom. But she still has to maintain her standards of
holiness. For, (1Cor. 7:39)
“if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to
whom she will; only in the Lord.” Connie the new Patricia
maintained a workable standard of holiness “in the
Lord.” After the knucklehead knocked her up, she swore
off men. Her courtship with Bill was chaste. They danced the
tango once, and their kissing was moderate (“sort of a
sister-in-law brother-in-law kiss”) or not.
In his second letter to the
Corinthians Paul says he's, (2Cor.
4:2b) “... not handling the word of God
deceitfully.” An example of deceit can be found when,
(Gen. 34:13) “the sons of
Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said,
because he had defiled Dinah their sister—” that they
were allowed to intermarry but used it as a ruse to gain an
advantage, because actually they weren't. Paul wasn't being
deceitful, so after he tells them in first Corinthians a mixed
marriage is permissible, he's not going to tell them in second
Corinthians it's not. Modern bibles don't use a specific plural
‘ye’ in, (2Cor. 6:14a) “Be ye not
unequally yoked together with unbelievers: ...” so it is
co-opted for a singular application prohibiting individual (mixed)
marriages rather than go to his following rhetorical question and
match (singular) case with, (2Cor. 6:15) “what part has he
that believeth with an infidel?” It's a rhetorical question
to be answered in the minds of the ones addressed. If a couple is
far enough along to consider marriage, they can ask themselves
the question of how religious differences would affect their
individual Christian commitments and act accordingly, rather than
accept some kind of group prohibition that doesn't even apply.
There is some tension
around the dinner table when “Patricia” uses her usual
colorful speech. The monsignor defends some of it, saying,
“In Judges
chapter 15, Samson smote the Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass.” But in church itself we hear only
edifying speech. When the monsignor runs to attend an emergency,
his strongest expression is, “Oh. my!”
Paul said he's defrauded nobody (2Cor. 7:2), which some fathers back then would undoubtedly take issue with had he put the kibosh on favorable ($) wedding arrangements in the works. He asked a telling rhetorical question, true, but he never actually forbad mixed marriages. If the parties backed out, that's on them. In this movie the bride will have to use her correct name to avoid a fraudulent wedding.
Production Values
"" (1996) is a remake
of “No
Man of Her Own”, a 1950 dud that starred Barbara
Stanwyck. The current incarnation of this romantic folly was
directed by Richard Benjamin. Its screenwriters were Phoef
Sutton and Lisa-Maria Radano. It was based on the book, I
Married a Dead Man by Cornell Woolrich. It stars Shirley
MacLaine, Ricki Lake and Brendan Fraser. These leads played quite well off
each other. Puerto Rican, homosexuales driver Paco was played by
Miguel Sandoval appearing in many scenes to add some farce.
MPA rated it PG–13 for some thematic elements and brief strong language. The writers and actors get the job done with twin Bill being a pushover for the Pygmalion guest. Runtime is 1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
There is a religious theme here of an unchurched dame trying to make her way in a generational Catholic family, but it isn't overplayed. The primary characters seem like hippies with money. It starts stronger than it finishes, for trying to do a whole lot in a limited time. They did their best.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quotations from the Authorized King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Westgate, Donald E. Cops and Robbers. Copyright © 1972 by Donald E. Westgate. Mew York: M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1972. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org