The new J.LO movie was one long fever dream. This is me…Now, a musical autobiography of Jennifer Lopez’s love life, is available on Amazon Prime. The hour-long movie goes through the ups and downs of her looking for love and never giving up hope that love is out there.
Let me say this: at face value as a long music video, and as a past competition dancer, I liked the futuristic choreography and dancing. I also liked that viewers learned about a popular Puerto Rican tale and thought the Zodiacal Council was hilarious as comic relief. However, when looking at the storyline at a deeper level, I was rubbed the wrong way. To me, the project came off as self-involved and egotistic. This was especially shown in the follow-up documentary with behind-the-scenes moments. It was also clear that Ben Affleck did not like their love details being exposed and how calling the documentary “The Greatest Love Story Never Told” was ironic because it shared many things (Ha!). Here are the things I liked about the film after watching it. Spoilers ahead.
“The Legend of the Hummingbird”
This Is Me…Now opens with beautiful vintage imagery including the Puerto Rican flag (Soy Puertoricana!) and many flowers to tell the Puerto Rican tale “The Legend of the Hummingbird.” The story is about Taroo and Alida, two Taíno star-crossed lovers. Alida is turned into a red rose to escape a forced marriage and Taroo is turned into a hummingbird, searching the rest of his days for the right red flower in the hopes of finding Alida again. I understood this to symbolize an undying love for love and never quitting to find it.
The Heart Factory
It took me about fifteen minutes into the film to understand what was going on. After J.LO falls off a motorcycle that she was on with a past love, we are thrown into a mind-bending steampunk factory featuring a beating mechanical heart. The red roses have all died, forcing J.LO to risk her life to enter the mechanical heart. She struggles and almost falls before making it inside and adding a red petal into the center of the heart’s flame. With the heart restored, the factory is bursting with red flowers again, symbolic of her hope for true love being restored. Red flowers continue to be significant throughout the film since the red rose, like in “The Legend of the Hummingbird”, represents love and J.LO constantly seeking it. I highly appreciated the creativity in this scene.
The Zodiacal Council
The Zodiacal Council was hands down my favorite part of the movie. Astrology plays a big part in the film, so it was only fitting that there would be a counsel in space based on the twelve zodiac signs. Popular celebrity guest stars appear on the council – including Jane Fonda, Sofia Vergara, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Kim Petras, and more – representing each sign in a fun fashion. Not only were they hilarious, but I loved the idea of having a zodiac counsel sending J.LO “signs” to point her in the right direction toward love. Very clever.
After Thoughts
The film was clever, outrageously bold, and had well-thought-through production quality. The extravagant CGI somehow worked, and the movie included little details like floor tiles saying J.LO. I enjoyed the overall imagery and style of the different scenes (the ‘Midnight Trip to Vegas’ scene pictured above was my favorite look!) I did think that the storyline was a bit out there. Jennifer Lopez released a follow-up documentary called The Greatest Love Story Never Told which can also be watched on Amazon Prime.
Have you seen This Is Me…Now? What did you think?