“Have you ever heard the story of Alida and Taroo?…”
So begins Jennifer Lopez‘s semi autobiographical musical experience This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, a narrative accompaniment to her latest album, This Is Me…Now, an urban pop record that celebrates her reunion with now husband Ben Affleck, following their original romance some two decades prior.
The love fable that Lopez narrates over the opening visuals of Dave Meyers‘ ambitious project details two star-crossed lovers from warring Taíno tribes. It’s a mythical Puerto Rican tale of tragedy, but eventual hopefulness as Alida, forced to marry another, looked to the Gods for help, being turned into a red flower. Taroo, sinking into a dark despair upon hearing this, begged the Gods to help find her, ultimately being turned into a hummingbird. It is now said that whenever you see a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, it is Taroo searching for his true love.
The melodramatic, metaphorical nature of this story, and particularly the important imagery of the hummingbird, centres Lopez’s Love Story, with the performer utilising her underrated vocals, expressive choreography, and acute self-awareness to deliver a tale that wisely comments on her own romantic history without entirely admitting that this is true-to-life.
The basic story is that Lopez’s character – here simply known as The Artist – is in love with love, and no matter how hard a word she receives from her plethora of friends, who receive such defining names as “The Cynic” (Matthew Law), “The Lover” (Brandon Delsid), “The Quiet One” (Alix Angelis), “The Realist” (Malcolm Kelner), “The Idealist” (Ashley Versher), and “The Fighter” (Danielle Larracuente), or her therapist (long-time collaborator, rapper Fat Joe), she refuses to give up on finding “the one”. The throws of an abusive relationship lead her to a trio of impulsive marriages – this musical sequence rather amusingly interchanges the grooms (played by Tony Bellissimo, Derek Hough and Trevor Jackson) over the course of the accompanying song (the album’s launch single, “Can’t Get Enough”) – before they all end and she’s in the arms of a much younger, more reckless partner (Carlito Olivero‘s “Mr. Young Guy”).
If you’ve kept tabs on Lopez’s love life it isn’t too difficult to decipher which of her former partners are being lightly referenced here, but, to her credit, she’s never punching down on her individual experiences with these men. It’s more that the stars didn’t align for them, and as much as the higher powers are begging her to not read so much into her zodiacal beliefs, The Artist is happy to suffer the heartbreak if it means it could lead to a truer love. A truer love that ultimately she finds in herself.
On the surface it’s a simple enough story, but through the creative lens of Lopez and Meyers, This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is a more visually complex, and exciting, work of art. The higher powers are literally represented in the form of “The Zodiacal Council”, where Sagittarius (Jane Fonda), Libra (Trevor Noah), Virgo (pop singer Kim Petras), Leo (Post Malone), Scorpio (Keke Palmer), Cancer (Sofia Vergara), Gemini (Jenifer Lewis), Aries (Jay Shetty), Taurus (Neil deGrasse Tyson) and Pisces (Sadhguru) sporadically narrate their concerns as they watch over The Artist, helpless to stop her from being in love with love. There’s the expansive set design, which takes luxe housing locations and exponentially exaggerates them, which helps sell the musical aspect of the film. And then there’s the music itself, which showcases the majority of Lopez’s latest album, with specific songs serving as her emotional representation.
Next to the aforementioned “Can’t Get Enough”, with its chorus reading of “I’m still in love with you, boy” complementing the film’s romantic montage of her marriages, the heavier R&B inclusions of “Hearts and Flowers” and “Rebound” set the tone, respectively, for the film’s wild opening sequence inside a Heart Factory, an eventual dream sequence surrounding a group of workers hoping to mend a literal broken heart, and a commentary on a convenient romance that ultimately turns abusive (“Ran into your arms when running from the pain, ran past all the signs looking for something safe”). And similar to the album, the film takes The Artist on her own journey of self-discovery, as she shares her vulnerability (the interpretive dance-accompanied ballad “Broken Like Me”), her acceptance of her own love (the titular “This Is Me…Now”), and the eventual love that made each step worth the pain (the classical and whimsical “Hummingbird”, a Singin’ in the Rain-inspired sequence that brings her face-to-face with her own elusive hummingbird).
Given that Lopez has unfortunately seldom been a critical darling, especially as a musician, there’ll already been a heft of detractors ready to pick apart This Is Me…Now: A Love Story as a whole. And though she’s essentially counteracting that criticism by creating this project with not only her self in mind, but her devoted fans, it simply can’t be denied at how creative a project this truly is – both visually and emotionally. Had this been a labour of love put forward by a more culturally relevant, market-saturated artist, I wholeheartedly believe there’d be more praise at hand, but the truth is Lopez broke barriers for the popstars of today to thrive across a multitude of genres and ventures, and it’s about time that she earn her flowers – and her hummingbird.
FOUR STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
This Is Me…Now: A Love Story is streaming on Prime Video from February 16th, 2024.
