Kevin Smith – he is the New Jersey amateur who broke into cinema with the foul-mouthed indie hit “Clerks,” ventured into unconventional romance with “Chasing Amy” and received a death threat for the religious comedy “Dogma” – writes a love letter to his daughter with the sweet but sometimes schmaltzy “Jersey Girl.”

Conceived as a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife, Jen, “Jersey Girl” began as a way for Smith to deal with his burgeoning role as a father. The film ultimately serves as both a note to his daughter and a nod to his father, who passed away during pre-production of the film. And although “Jersey” sports a PG-13 rating, it maintains Smith’s tongue-twisting dialogue and ribald sensibility, while adding a sometimes sickening sweetness and a few twists on old plot conventions.

The film begins as Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck), a slick New York publicist, finds himself raising a daughter alone after wife Gertie (Jennifer Lopez) dies during childbirth. Balancing the stresses of work and fatherhood, Ollie is fired after making an off-color remark directed toward Will Smith. Heartbroken and out of a job, Ollie moves back to Highland, N.J. to live with with his grizzled father Bart (George Carlin).

Flash forward seven years and Ollie’s daughter, Gertie, is growing up, and Ollie has taken a job as a street sweeper while fantasizing about moving back to New York to resume his former career and lifestyle.

After years of celibacy, Ollie meets video store clerk Maya (Liv Tyler) as Gertie raids the kids’ flicks and he sneaks into the adult section. A romance quickly blossoms despite Ollie’s faith to Lopez’s Gertie.

Tyler is Ollie’s perfect foil as the cute and demure, but witty, hyper-sexual and overly honest Maya. While Tyler is often relegated to simply a pretty face on-screen, Smith gives her character some real material and she gladly runs with it.

While Smith is often criticized for his, let’s say, colorful language and the supposed dreary look of his films, most of the vulgarity is nowhere in sight and “Jersey” plays out beautifully at the hands of Oscar award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.

The aforementioned performance, likewise, receive an upgrade.

While it’s not much to say “Jersey Girl” is Ben Affleck’s best performance in years (especially in the wake of stinkers like “Bounce,” Reindeer Games,” “Gigli” and others), both he and Lopez pull off the role of a doting couple rather convincingly. Even Carlin, known to most as one of the funniest men to ever live, shows a genuine talent for acting and plays the aging father perfectly.

This is not to say “Jersey Girl” completely rises above its genre, however.

Some of the film’s scenes play out like tepid single-father sitcoms, and a bit of the music is overdone. It’s sometimes tough not to cringe as Ollie visits Gertie’s grave while Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” plays or as Bruce Springsteen’s “City in Ruins” overwhelms one scene. Smith even utilizes the plot contrivance of the school play, so often-used in films like “About a Boy,” “Love Actually” and “Uptown Girl.” But he overcomes cliche with style.

Shouts of “sell-out” have been heard since the plot of this film was announced, but “Jersey Girl” is far more about growing up than it is about selling out to a mainstream audience. While it would be fun to see Smith stay in his fancifully-crafted and hilarious world of comic books, video games, rooftop hockey and superhero post-coital foodcourt debates, it would only be a matter of time before the private joke so many were in on became fit for the masses.

As mainstream debuts go, “Jersey Girl” is about as good as anyone could have hoped for from Smith; in fact, it’s much better than I could have expected from a man who taught me the meaning of the word “snowballing” and the virtues of topless fortune telling to an unsuspecting world.

“Jersey Girl” may not have nearly as many four-syllable cuss words as “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” or “Clerks,” but what it lacks in vulgarity and Smith’s iconoclastic humor it more than makes up for with genuine heart and emotion.