“What is this fucking girl’s problem?”
As Jennifer Lopez states in the opening moments of The Greatest Love Story Never Told, she’s highly aware of what the media has pondered about the multitude of marriages (4, to be precise) she’s partaken in over the course of her resilient career.
And it’s that self-awareness and hopeful romantic mentality that has driven so much of her latest media output; her first album in a decade, This Is Me…Now, a sequel album to her 2002 love-adorned record This Is Me…Then, and the not-a-film-but-not-a-music-video visual accompaniment This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, both of which leaned into the vulnerability and pop emotionality of her twice-in-a-lifetime romance with Ben Affleck.
As much as both of those projects showcased an openness to the superstar, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, the third component to her promised This Is Me…Now “experience”, is perhaps the most revelatory, highlighting Lopez’s unmatched creativity, her tenacity in seeing her vision come to fruition, and both the fierceness and sweetness she harnesses when it comes to her relationships.
Documenting the making of the film (the album already a finished product at this time), Lopez frames the work as an “abstract biography” and credits Prince’s Purple Rain as a source of inspiration. She wanted the album to produce more than just traditional music videos, and A Love Story was slowly weaved together through her own script work, with director Dave Meyers and Affleck serving as collaborators throughout the process.
“It’s not like anybody was clamouring for the next JLo record,” she acknowledges during Jason Bergh‘s coverage, as the realisation that her ambition and overall success doesn’t necessarily equate to studio confidence when it comes to funding. Despite having two number one projects on separate streaming services – Shotgun Wedding on Prime Video and The Mother on Netflix – there was a notion put forth that musical projects just don’t sell; not unless you’re Taylor Swift, it would seem.
A $30 million on-paper deal was delivered and retreated just as quickly – 3 weeks before production too – and despite making a movie with your own money being “the biggest cardinal sin in Hollywood” (as Affleck’s voice-over states), Lopez was determined to fund it herself. With $20 million of her own dollars on the line, it makes sense that Team Lopez – which includes long-time manager Benny Medina and producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas – adopt a strict temperament when it comes to the logistics, and although they face continual uphill battles the precise execution of Lopez’s Love Story never wavers.
With a third of the budget shaved, Lopez’s vision for A Love Story potentially has to alter. Original co-star Anthony Ramos (In The Heights) backs out of the project in loyalty to Marc Anthony, Lopez’s ex-husband and one of his close friends (“I’m not playing me,” she assures the actor, who’s worried that he’d be taking shots at their relationship); several wish-list performers, such as Jason Momoa, Jennifer Coolidge and Ariana Grande, are all either unavailable or pass on the project (Lopez admits she’s aware of how they scared they might be to put themselves out there in such a film as hers); and eventual co-star Jane Fonda (who performs as the Zodiac sign Sagittarius in one of the film’s outlandish sequences) expresses concern about the album’s perceived sincerity and if it’s necessary that she needs to release it at all.
And Fonda, who lovingly relates to Lopez, certainly has a point when it comes to the seeming incessant nature of the Bennifer 2.0 mentality that these projects adhere to. It’s easy to criticise the couple as trying to prove they’ll work this time around after such a highly publicised union two decades prior, but both are aware of the scrutiny, and you can sense that Lopez, being someone who ties her creativity to her emotions, did this out of a want for her own benefit, rather than a need to simply put out an album for the sake of it.
We see it through her eyes as the middle child who never felt like she had a connection or attention from her workaholic father and narcissistic mother; through the lens of her self-worth when she and Affleck originally broke-up (“I didn’t think much of myself, so the world didn’t think much of me”); and, most importantly, as a woman who has forgiven her now-husband for whatever pain he caused her. The moments that Bergh captures between the two can’t help but reassure any invested viewer that they have a dynamic that suits both of their personalities, and though the album and the film bathe in their romance on the most extravagant level, it’s this documentary that holds the most emotional weight.
As a personality who always seems to have her best foot forward when it comes to her image in the media, the stripped-back nature of The Greatest Love Story Never Told only strengthens Lopez’s portrayal as a relatable figure. She may be untouchable to most of us, and it’s easy to misinterpret her determination for these projects as a form of vanity, but as she so simply states as to why this story had to be told and put out there in the world – “Because it’s beautiful.”
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Greatest Love Story Never Told is streaming on Prime Video from February 27th, 2024.
