For months, questions have swirled round what precisely Jennifer Lopez’s musical movie “This Is Me… Now: A Love Story” could be.
film assessment
THIS IS ME… NOW: A LOVE STORY
Working time: 55 minutes. Rated 13+. Streaming Feb. 16 on Prime Video.
We knew that the film would characteristic songs from her new album, additionally known as “This Is Me… Now,” and by some means concern itself with the numerous highs and Los of her topsy-turvy romances.
Properly, now that it’s right here in all its gaudy glory, I can reveal that the Amazon flick is an entire lot wilder than touching introspection set to music. This ain’t an acoustic Springsteen on a stool, or Miley within the yard.
J.Lo has delivered an over-the-top song-and-dance camptacular, each gravely critical and deliriously humorous, offering one cuckoo second after one other. It’s simple to think about Lopez instructing director Dave Meyers, “Let’s get loud.” Her flick is blaring.
An instance of how surreal the cinematic remedy session is: Husband Ben Affleck (who made a splash on the Tremendous Bowl) dons a lion’s mane wig to play a cable information host named Rex Stone, who proclaims on his present known as “The Reality” that “love is useless!”
As a result of the movie is such a proudly ludicrous and thinly veiled retelling of precise occasions, it’s pass-the-popcorn entertaining. If solely extra A-Record celebrities would interpret their headline-making private lives as an absurd, big-budget musical co-starring Jane Fonda.
I yelped when the “9 to five” actress, taking part in an omniscient character known as Sagittarius, appeared down on J.Lo’s struggles from the cosmos and noticed, “It’s like a ‘Vanderpump Guidelines’ marathon. And it’s 4 within the morning, and I cease judging them and I begin judging myself.”
Sag is a member of the high-in-the-sky Zodiac Council, alongside Trevor Noah (Libra), Kim Petras (Virgo), Keke Palmer (Scorpio), Sofia Vergara (Most cancers), Jenifer Lewis (Gemini), Jay Shetty (Aries), Neil deGrasse Tyson (Taurus), Sadhguru (Pices) and Publish Malone (Leo), who whimpers, “It makes me tremendous unhappy. I simply wanna give her an enormous hug!”
Heaven’s prime precedence, naturally, is Jennifer Lopez.
Or, sorry, not Jennifer Lopez in any respect. Her character right here is named — watch for it — “The Artist.”
These ethereal beings watch intently as Artist endures a foul breakup with a man with Affleck’s jawline, marries 3 times after which learns to like herself ultimately. Actually. She croons a track to her inside baby within the Bronx who shouts at her, “I didn’t get sufficient love from you! You left me alone!”
After her dramatic opening break up, which is visualized as a bike accident on an enormous stretch of water-covered land, Lopez has a kooky fantasy: She imagines that she is an assembly-line employee on the “Coronary heart Manufacturing facility,” the place her and a bunch a ladies preserve an enormous mechanical ticker beating by feeding it flower petals.
“This Is Me… Now” isn’t aesthetically lifelike, per se, however some components clearly happen in Los Angeles and New York, whereas others flip right into a “Mad Max: Fury Street” fragrance advert. You simply by no means know.
On the rebound within the sort-of-real world, she begins relationship an indignant “New Man,” who punches the partitions of her residence — which, not giving a rattling about subtlety, is a glass field — and retains her connected to him utilizing a fair much less delicate rope.
When that courtship crumbles, the Artist strikes on once more. Throughout a marriage dance, J.Lo marries three guys in a Bollywood-y montage.
A part of the enjoyable of watching “This Is Me… Now” is taking part in a sport of “Identify That Ex.” Is that dude Ojani Noa, Cris Judd or Marc Anthony? In spite of everything her marriages collapse, one fling she drags residence with a bottle of booze is a useless ringer for Casper Sensible.
It’s that misguided hookup with a far youthful man that leads her friends to stage an intervention.
“We expect you is likely to be a intercourse addict,” says one.
“Or a relationship addict,” chimes in one other. “Working from one relationship to the subsequent.”
These blunt bombshells, and the prodding of her therapist performed by Fats Joe, leads to her attending “Love Addicts Nameless” — the hits, they carry on coming! — the place she performs a shifting quantity known as “Damaged Like Me” in a gymnasium.
Lopez’s dancing, and the entire vigorous ensemble choreography, is fabulous all through.
And the $20 million manufacturing appears to be like snazzier than your common Marvel film as of late.
The “Singin’ In The Rain”-inspired finale is a heart-warmer.
However the star is actually Lopez’s mind, and the way she earnestly decided that the easiest way to inform the story of the previous thirty years could be to have Kim Petras and Publish Malone play speaking constellations.
And for the lifetime of Jenny from the Block, that was the best name.