Jennifer Lopez has spent the higher a part of her profession navigating the 2 halves of her public persona: Bronx-born woman subsequent door “Jenny from the block” and Hollywood energy participant “J.Lo.” Although a lot of the stress between the 2 has been amplified by media protection that spans calculated advertising and marketing campaigns and inescapable paparazzi scrutiny, Lopez has ceaselessly appeared to capitulate to whichever of the 2 serves her greatest on the time.

“That is Me…Now: A Love Story” is, on its face, the visible element of her self-funded ninth studio album, and at a reported $20 million price ticket it’s straightforward to see it at first as an commercial. However as not solely the topic however star, co-writer and government producer of an interlinked sequence of music movies, Lopez showcases above all else how robust it’s to precise oneself personally after greater than 30 years within the public eye, leading to a just-shy-of-feature-length movie that provides a lot to admire even when it’s not absolutely profitable.

Opening with the telling of the Puerto Rican fable of Alida and Taroo, lovers remodeled right into a flower and a hummingbird, Lopez (as “The Artist”) examines her personal dependancy to like, and the dangers that include falling laborious, and quick, seemingly each time there’s a possibility. Given the bookends of the brand new album with its 2002 predecessor “That is Me…Then,” which was conceived the primary time she and her now-spouse Ben Affleck had been courting, it comes as a shock that Affleck seems solely in silhouette because the lover whose bike she will get thrown from as they hurtle throughout a magic-hour panorama. (That mentioned, he additionally pops up in heavy make-up as a newscaster, however his contributions to “Now” are minimal.)

Their crash propels the Artist instantly into “Hearts and Flowers,” which takes place in a factory-like cavern the place the fireplace in her coronary heart is in peril of extinguishing. The third metaphor for love in lower than 5 minutes, it units the stage for Lopez to leverage her life — and extra exactly, the accounts of her life reported by the media — to plumb the depths of the aphorism “earlier than you may really love another person you must study to like your self.” Lopez subsequently dances her manner by a sequence of trials to rekindle the equipment of her coronary heart, however even supported by co-writers Chris Shafer and Dave Meyers (the latter additionally directing), she proves a extra formidable showperson than truth-teller.

It isn’t that Lopez appears insincere; removed from it. Few artists at her stage are prepared to highlight the ups and downs of their non-public lives, and compared to, say, Beyonce and Jay-Z’s too-frequently superficial supergroup victory-lap “The whole lot is Love,” you may really feel her not simply attempting to put naked her experiences however depart room for the numerous reactions and opinions to these expertise from others. However it’s additionally what results in the formidable however barely unwieldy construction of “That is Me…Now,” which incorporates a refrain of astrological indicators (performed by Trevor Noah, Jane Fonda, Submit Malone, Keke Palmer, Trevor Noah, Jenifer Lewis, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sofia Vergara and extra) watching from on excessive, a therapist performed by fellow Bronx native and frequent collaborator Fats Joe, a Love Addicts Nameless group led by Paul Raci, a cattily-supportive good friend group and a revolving door of romantic companions performed by quite a few dancers (Derek Hough) and actors (Trevor Jackson).

What shakes out between the layers of the Artist’s actuality is the sense that Lopez desires to be absolutely clear — that when she says “This Is Me,” she means it. She begins the movie by saying, “What I needed to be after I grew up, my reply was at all times … in love.” The music video segments additional reiterate this: escaping the glass home of an abusive relationship in “Rebound”; biking by three weddings concurrently throughout “Can’t Get Sufficient” whereas her closest confidantes uneasily try to help her; pouring emotions out interpreted by fellow therapy-seekers on “Damaged Like Me”; displaying like to her childhood self with “That is Me… Now.” However Lopez can also be, at her essence, a performer. How prepared really is she not simply to be sincere, however to be incorrect, and even actively unappealing? It’s unclear.

It’s laborious to not empathize together with her, however in the end it’s clear to Lopez that “being in love with love” is a kind of unambiguously good factor. The astrological indicators and her circle of mates each wring their fingers at her unhappiness, however she solutions their questions and criticisms, and in any other case resolves her personal insecurities by studying clichéd classes. Towards the top of the movie, she performs her new track “Midnight Journey to Vegas,” impressed by Lopez’s real-life quickie marriage ceremony to Affleck, the place she experiences the identical nuptial conclusion as “Intercourse and the Metropolis” protagonist Carrie Bradshaw, one other girl who was by her personal measure too typically in love with love. By which case, Lopez’s newest undertaking evidences an artist who desires to be fearless and open, however who additionally understands the affect story — a narrative. And fairly than relatability and superstardom, these are the values that Lopez must reconcile.

To be truthful, it appears like an individual who’s generated her stage of fame and success and a spotlight won’t ever really be “knowable” to an odd particular person. However “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story” is the closest that they’ll doubtless come, and it’s a testomony to Lopez’s expertise that she’s capable of take pop-star knowledge and make it appear to be a window into her soul.