Kevin Smith, more known for his dick and fart joke movies (so aptly phrased thusly by himself), has gone entirely different route with Jersey Girl: this movie is about family. Raquel Castro as the daughter Gertie Trinke comes across immediate and natural, and raises the movie well above mediocrity in my books.

The movie starts with a school scene, one awkward, little pupil after another reading their poor homework essays. Until it's Gertie's turn. Dolled up in her school uniform, a model of all things good, she starts her essay, and if you're anything like me, you start suspecting your life will be enriched by one more infatuation before the movie is over.

Gertie's essay tells about her dad Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck) who was a successful movie publicist, and about her mommy who was a book editor. They were very much in love and very happy together, and planning marriage. All that came to a sudden end when Gertie was born, however: mommy died in labor. Dad was left to take care of the baby, a task for which he had neither the time nor a great interest. And so, one day, pushed beyond his patience, he screws up enormously, and his job is history. And nobody will hire him again after what he did.

Ollie finds himself making his living driving a street sweeper, dreaming of reviving his career, and most of all, raising his daughter. This is still the state of affairs several years later when the audience gets to see Gertie again. Now seven years old, she's a beautiful, happy girl, daddy's princess, who runs into his arms as he has come to pick her up from school.

Raquel's acting is charming, or it could be more accurate to say that Raquel is charming. Having seen her in talk shows has confirmed my first impression that Raquel is almost her real self in Jersey Girl: a lively but all in all quite normal nine-year-old, only with heaps of beauty and charisma. Not everybody will agree with this characterisation of her. Alex, for one, is slightly less excited of her than I am.

Another character I liked a lot was Maya, Ollie's new love interest, played by Liv Tyler. Liv is a pretty lady, and I took notice of her appealing soft voice already in Lord of the Rings. In Jersey Girl, Liv takes the appealingness to a whole new level, which, combined with her interesting, gently shocking character makes the performance one I'd remember for a long time, were it not so overshadowed by Raquel.

And if you like Raquel, you will like the ending of the movie. A movie about family – if it's a happy one, and Jersey Girl is – is a love story. This movie is above all about the father and the daughter, so it's only appropriate it ends with the two in their arms, gazing into each other's eyes. Very tender. To me, as a hopeless romantic, this appealed tremendously.

Kevin Smith, who both directed and wrote the movie, is one of my favorite movie makers. His competence shows in the smoothness of the movie. It's a story well told. If you didn't like Raquel and Liv, however, the movie would be one among many with a mediocre plot. If, like me, you do like the actresses, Jersey Girl is a movie that'll make you feel warm and fuzzy for a long time.