when Jenifer Lopez I gave her the idea”surreal magical odyssey” of a new movie, the Amazon original it would eventually be called This Is Me… Now: A Love Storymet with a resounding message: Was she sure?
“Everybody thought I was crazy,” Lopez said Variety on a cover for her bold three-volume work. “And by the way, I thought I was crazy.” The February 16 public debut of her hour-long musical film and what it might be her last album will be followed by the release of a documentary entitled The greatest love story never told, on February 27. The doctor's title, which comes from a stack of love letters that Lopez's now-husband, Ben Affleck, he wrote to her, there is obvious irony. As Affleck is quoted as saying in the documentary, “If you make a record about it, it sounds like you're saying it.”
Lopez's $20 million venture, which he financed himself when a potential backer backed out at the last minute, was met with resistance at every turn. The film is described by Variety as “a semi-animated musical journey” through Lopez's romantic missteps on her way to reuniting with Affleck. The couple broke off their engagement shortly after their planned wedding was called off in 2003, before reuniting and finally walking down the aisle nearly two decades later. Affleck said that going public with personal details of their story “was kind of an adjustment for me.” (The Oscar-winning director appears ostensibly in the film as a character named Rex Stone.)
Affleck had a more subtle way of expressing his concern than Lopez's producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, who said: “I was worried. “Why are you sharing your story? It is very personal. Stop it.' It made me feel uncomfortable for her.” When asked if she came up with the concept, Goldsmith-Thomas bluntly stated: “No! He never beat me. I was petrified the whole time.”
Lopez's ex Father-in-law costar Jane Fonda had a similar reaction, initially reluctant to appear in the film. “I want you to know that I don't completely know why, but I feel invested in you and Ben, and I really want this to work,” Fonda is quoted as saying in the documentary. “However, this is absurd. Like, it feels too much like you're trying to prove something instead of just living it. You know, every other picture is the two of you kissing and the two of you hugging.'
Still, Fonda was persuaded to join Lopez's “zodiac love council” — a Greek chorus that guides her romantic heroine through the film. His bonkers series includes Trevor Noah, Sofia Vergara, Keke Palmer, Post Malone, Jay Shetty, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Kim Petras. Derek Hough credited to IMDb as “Husband 2” and Fat Joe plays Lopez's therapist. But others refused to participate in the film, including one Khloe Kardashian, according Variety. “People are afraid to put themselves out there,” Lopez apparently tells the camera.
Music video director Dave Meyers jumps the film from a script written by Lopez Matt Walton. But as he said Variety, it was Affleck who guided her through the filmmaking process. “Ben said to me, 'You're going to write it and then you're going to film it,'” he recalls. Lopez added that after Affleck watched her magnum opus, “he said, 'You made a movie. For you. You made a great movie. You did it.” That was the only stamp of approval he required. “Honestly, I don't care what happens now,” Lopez said. “That's the biggest kind of compliment I could get.”
