This is me . . . Now: A Love Story, a conceptual musical accompanying Jennifer Lopez’s new album of the same name, the superstar is love for love, husband Ben Affleck and — why not? — to himself.
Me, now streaming on Amazon, is essentially a fairy tale or fable reconfigured in terms of a modern myth of self-affirmation.
Lopez plays a woman, called The Artist, who keeps stumbling in her relationships. Why? Because she forgot to love herself! Once that lesson is unlocked, she’s freed from her past and ready to find her forever soulmate: though only seen elliptically at the end, Prince Charming has Affleck’s slightly scraggly beard.
It’s a bright, dreamy moment of bonding, not unlike the couple’s recent Super Bowl ad for Dunkin’ Donuts. It belongs more to the tradition of domestic married comedy, publish-community, with its hints of friendly friction and give and take after years together. Although, compared to what most people experience in long-term relationships, that ad is also pale and dreamy.
65 minutes leading up to me Affleck’s apotheosis adds up to a musical that pulls it off at every turn — wildly, deliriously embellished — as it takes us through a series of extravagant fantasy numbers, all of which showcase the album’s catchy songs. We see:
Lopez sorts rose petals on a conveyor belt in a factory powered by a giant steampunk heart (she recently said it was a metaphor for her breakup with Affleck 20 years ago); Lopez frantically rushes from one end of a transparent Plexiglas apartment to the other as she tries to escape an abusive lover; Lopez spins through a chiffon light sequence imagining her repeated trips to the altar for three ultimately failed marriages; and, finally, Lopez happily dancing through the downpour — a tribute to Gene Kelly’s immortal song in singing in the rain but with much heavier precipitation. Lopez is clearly unconcerned about how long it will take to dry, perhaps a sign of fulfillment and completion.
Her wedding fantasy.
Jennifer Lopez/YouTube
Meanwhile, somewhere up in the stratosphere, a wise council of zodiac figures — presided over by none other than Jane Fonda as Sagittarius, backed by A-listers like Post Malone and Sofia Vergara — looks down in concern and dismay. It is Clash of the titans meets “Jenny From the Block” — not a line anyone probably expected to read.
Advice is also given to Lopez by a group of friends, ordinary, ordinary mortals who appear from time to time. They even direct her to a support group. This results in the film’s weakest scene — it’s something like Refrain “At the ballet” performed with limbs convulsed in agony.
But who are these friends anyway? Why would Lopez aka The Artist ever bother with them? When she is away from them and alone in her huge house, she mourns in an enviable state of supreme, sluggish glamour—an unencumbered diva.
Lopez is as entitled to this beautiful pose of solitude as she is to love.
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education