When did you first fall in love with , which is already a monumental flop. Earlier this year, Lopez released her self-funded visual album This Is Me… Now, an absolutely bonkers testament to its creator’s undying belief that love conquers all. It’s not every day you see a global popstar upstaged by a heart machine that runs on red flower petals, but that’s exactly what that hallucinogenic, steampunk spectacular delivered.
Unlike most of her on-screen efforts, Lopez co-wrote her visual album, which preceded the making-of documentary that soon followed. By taking her brand directly into her own hands, Lopez did her image more harm than good. Comparisons to Beyoncé’s far more capable visual album Lemonade were not exactly flattering. The end result mostly felt like a testament to Lopez’s undying love for her husband Ben Affleck, which is unfortunate given the reported relationship decay that’s followed the project’s release.
Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan
Columbia Pictures
Culturally, Lopez’s wheelhouse has traditionally been “slightly goofy and not always in on the joke.” To claim that her This Is Me… Now era squanders some kind of gravitas would be as laughable as, say, a movie in which a 19-year-old woos his teacher by giving her a “first edition” copy of the Iliad. It would also perhaps be unfair to point out that in terms of box office, her performance has plummeted. (Marry Me grossed $50.5 million worldwide on a $23 million budget—which isn’t bad but also pales next to, say, Maid in Manhattan’s $154.9 million haul on a $55 million budget, or Anaconda’s $136.9 million take on the back of a $16.6 million budget, or even The Boy Next Door’s $52.4 million return on a $4 million budget.) As stark a tale as the numbers might tell, they also reflect a broader trend at the box office, where any movie that does not fall under the tentpole of pre-existing superhero IP tends to struggle for attention. Also, Marry Me released on Peacock on the same day it debuted in theaters, so its box office doesn’t tell the full story. Still, for the past few years, Lopez’s stock has seemed to drop dramatically.
Columbia Pictures
In terms of prestige, 2019’s Hustlers marked a critical high point for Lopez not seen since, perhaps, Selena. As Ramona, she was in full “JLo” mode—spiky, empathetic, infallibly likable. Director Lorene Scafaria knew exactly how to leverage her star’s public image to her film’s benefit; we were all putty in her hands, like Constance Wu’s novice dancer Destiny wrapping herself in Ramona’s billowing fur coat. Ever since that dazzling performance, however, the cracks in Lopez’s on-screen have started to show.
First, there was 2022’s Marry Me—a mediocre but passable romp that marketed itself by declaring Lopez the “Queen of the Rom-Com.” Did JLo, who produced the film, crown herself with that superlative? Probably! And that’s why we love her. Like most of her projects, Marry Me entwines itself with Lopez’s personal brand—she plays a pop star whose messy love life has unfolded before the public’s eyes. At the same time, it abandons the fighter quality that’s made Lopez’s previous genre endeavors so appealing. (Yes, I’m counting Monster in Law, which critics unfairly maligned in its time, as an example of Lopez’s golden age—rewatch it now with fresh eyes and cope with being wrong!)
Courtesy of Netflix
Like most decent-but-not-great movies in our streaming era, Marry Me has already fallen out of the public memory and will likely never be talked about again. We came, we saw the set pieces stolen from other rom-com hits, and we promptly forgot about it. The deliriously wild pirate movie Shotgun Wedding, meanwhile, probably would have been a hit summer blockbuster if it had not been a streaming release somewhat overshadowed by the, erm, Allegations™ against its original leading man, Armie Hammer. The film was a perfect marriage of Lopez’s greatest talents—light, bubbly comedy and action-packed sarcasm. As my colleague Coleman Spilde pointed out in his review, it takes a special kind of actress to convincingly deliver lines like, “So, what, this grenade is just part of my life now?” Lopez is just that person. Last year’s The Mother was similar—a solid film that would have benefited from a theatrical release and has since already been forgotten.
As meh as these films might’ve been, it was This Is Me… Now that showcased Lopez’s absolute hubris, and now, Atlas has delivered another embarrassment when our ambitious queen could’ve really used a win. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about JLo, it’s that you should never underestimate her—especially when she’s down. Still, it’s going to take a lot of red flower petals to fuel this comeback.
