Movie Review: J.Lo’s Very Wacky, Very Wild, Very L.Lo Journey to Love in ‘This Is Me … Now’ 

This image released by Prime shows Jennifer Lopez in a scene from "This Is Me...Now: A Love Story." (Prime via AP)
This image released by Prime shows Jennifer Lopez in a scene from "This Is Me...Now: A Love Story." (Prime via AP)
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Movie Review: J.Lo’s Very Wacky, Very Wild, Very L.Lo Journey to Love in ‘This Is Me … Now’ 

This image released by Prime shows Jennifer Lopez in a scene from "This Is Me...Now: A Love Story." (Prime via AP)
This image released by Prime shows Jennifer Lopez in a scene from "This Is Me...Now: A Love Story." (Prime via AP)

OK, so maybe we’re not tracking her jet travel online like amateur spies, or worrying on a diplomatic level whether she’ll make it to a football game.

But current Swift-mania aside, let’s not forget that another force of nature, J.Lo, has been the ultimate celebrity for decades. Singer. Dancer. Rom-com actor, charismatic and charming. Social media queen, and yes, tabloid magnet, with the very public ups and downs of her love life. Jennifer Lopez, now 54, has been doing this pop icon thing for a very long time, and very well.

All of which is to say that when she sings now that she Ben Affleck don’t need to care about how others feel, well, who are we to argue? Who are we, really, to argue with J.Lo about anything?

Which is perhaps the perfect vantage point from which to assess the curious 65-minute creation that is “This is Me... Now: A Love Story,” the movie accompanying her album out Friday. Some will call it a mere music video — it’s directed by Dave Meyers, who’s done hundreds — but it’s heftier than that. And if the plot feels truly chaotic, blending (deep breath here, please) mythology, astrology, autobiography, confessional, modern romantic comedy and Old Hollywood glamour (still with us?), it is so J.Lo — so very, very J.Lo — that it feels logical, too.

Whether that means the film is, well, good, is probably a matter of how you feel about Lopez. Certainly, she’s brought everything to the table here: her talents, her fertile imagination and her wallet, too, self-financing when money fell through, to the tune of a reported $20 million. Talk about self-belief, which is the moral of the film, if expressed rather too quickly and conveniently. If you can’t love yourself, Lopez and co-writer Mark Walton tell us, you can’t really love anyone else.

Anyway, we told you there was a plot, so here goes. Lopez, though channeling her own life, doesn’t have a name in the film — she’s billed as “Artist.” But before we meet her, we begin with Puerto Rican mythology: the story of Alida and Taroo, star-crossed lovers from enemy tribes. They can’t be together, so the gods turn her into a red flower (Lopez appears in the animation as Alida), and Taroo into a hummingbird, destined to forever seek her. The Artist heard the tale as a child and decided what she wanted to be when she grew up: “in love.”

Now we see the modern Artist on the back of a motorcycle, riding across a beach, with a hunky man, face shielded. Then, screech — the motorcycle crashes. “Not all love stories have a happy ending,” she says.

The Artist’s adventure with love takes us to a “Metropolis”-like sequence in a very dystopian-looking factory, its purpose not fully clear but in any case, a great setting for one of many dance numbers. Lopez still has it, if you wondered. Turns out, though, the depleting oxygen and dancers in hazmat suits are all part of a dream. We learn this in the Artist’s therapy session the next day with her shrink (rapper Fat Joe).

He asks how it’s going with the new guy. Not so well, it turns out — the guy’s a Libra (astrology is ever-present) and, more to the point, violent, as we learn in the song “Rebound” about a toxic relationship, with a powerful dance sequence that has her continually pulled back into an abuser’s clutches.

Time for the Zodiac Council to weigh in. Yes, up in the stars, led by Jane Fonda, yes Jane Fonda, not as J.Lo’s mother-in-law this time but as Sagittarius, yes the sign, who peers down at our girl and says: “I don’t get it!” Yup, agrees Libra, played by Trevor Noah — Libras and Leos are supposed to go well together. And so it goes, with others chiming in: Keke Palmer as Scorpio, Post Malone as Leo, Sofia Vergara as Cancer, Kim Petras as Virgo and even astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson as Taurus.

This wacky group is a celestial counterpart to a band of well-meaning friends down on Earth, those typical rom-com buddies who stage an intervention into her love life. Is the Artist a love addict? Another addiction — to weddings, wink wink! — is explored in a big number where Lopez marries three different grooms.

It won’t shock you that the Artist ultimately learns to love herself, with a return to her roots (this is, after all, Jenny From the Block). If she didn’t, we wouldn’t have an audacious — but fun — recreation of Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain.” We also wouldn’t have reason to hear the triumphant songs that comprise the new album, coming more than 20 years after “This is Me ... Then,” written during her first go-round with Affleck.

Famously, they broke up. Famously, they reunited. (Now-husband Affleck appears here, in a sly cameo we won’t spoil.) We watched it all. And we’ll keep watching this most durable of superstars. There will be more to come. But this is her, now.



Mariah Carey Wasn't Always Sure About Making a Christmas Album

FILE - Mariah Carey performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Mariah Carey performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP, File)
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Mariah Carey Wasn't Always Sure About Making a Christmas Album

FILE - Mariah Carey performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - Mariah Carey performs at the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square, Dec. 31, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brent N. Clarke/Invision/AP, File)

Mariah Carey relishes the fact that she has become culturally synonymous with Christmas — thanks in part to the longevity of her iconic song “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” and its ubiquity every year when the holidays roll around.
But the Grammy winner admits she initially wasn’t sure about doing a Christmas record when her label pitched it. “I was a little bit apprehensive,” she recalls, reflecting on her album, “Merry Christmas,” turning 30 this month.
Ahead of her appearance at Sunday’s American Music Awards and an upcoming Christmas tour that kicks off in November, Carey spoke with The Associated Press about the advice she would give to young artists navigating fame and the use of her song, “Always Be My Baby,” in Ari Aster’s 2023 horror comedy, “Beau Is Afraid.”
The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
AP: What has it been like to celebrate nearly 20 years of “The Emancipation of Mimi” and reflect on this album’s legacy? CAREY: I think “The Emancipation of Mimi” is one of my albums where there were different boundaries that got pushed aside and I was really happy about that because I needed to come back, apparently. And so, it was a comeback. But it’s one of my favorite albums. And celebrating it this year and this celebration of “Mimi” was really fun because I never get to do those songs. I never do them. And this this time I did.
AP: Because of that kind of underdog feeling, you felt some artistic liberty and empowerment that maybe you hadn’t before? CAREY: Yeah, I feel like people were ready to re-embrace me. And, you know, how did I feel about that? I mean, I feel like the album “Charmbracelet” was a very good album too, but not everybody knew that album. So, you know, when “We Belong Together” came out after “It’s Like That,” which didn’t do as well but still did pretty well. Whatever.
AP: “It’s Like That” is a great song. CAREY: It’s a good song. And I love performing it. You know, I go through stages with these albums. It’s interesting.
AP: Your first Christmas album, “Merry Christmas,” is turning 30 this month. That was obviously a formative record for you and your career. Do you remember anything about its inception? CAREY: So that was the record company saying, “You should do a Christmas album.” And I was like, “I don’t know that I should at this juncture.” Because, you know, I was very young and was just starting out and I felt like people do Christmas albums later in their lives. But now people have started to do them whenever, like right at the top of their career. So, I mean, what was I feeling like? I was a little bit apprehensive and then I was like, “I love this.” And I decorated the studio and just had the best time.
AP: Chappell Roan has made headlines for speaking out about how she is grappling with sudden fame. As someone who has been in the public eye for so long, do you have advice for young artists who are dealing with this? CAREY: Well, I have been through my share of dramas and it’s not fun because you grow up thinking, “I want to be famous.” I mean, really with me, it was always, “I want to be a singer. I want to write songs.” But “I want to be famous” was right there with it. I feel like it was probably because I didn’t feel like I was good enough on my own because of the things I went through growing up. And that’s not a good way to feel, you know?
But my advice would be try your hardest to go into this industry with a love of your talent or what’s really real for you. You know, if it’s like, “I want to be famous. I want to run around with those people, whoever they are, the famous people,” then it’s probably not the best idea.
AP: Have you seen Ari Aster’s “Beau Is Afraid” with Joaquin Phoenix? CAREY: Yes. I had to approve that. I thought it was interesting the way they used my song, “Always Be My Baby.” That was interesting. I mean, it didn’t really match with the movie, but, you know, I was just being edgy by saying, “You know, okay, fine.” It was very different. I mean, I wasn’t reluctant, but I thought, “This is something way different than I’ve done ever.”