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Sometimes levity does achieve liftoff. Sometimes, Lopez can trick you into believing that life should<\/em> be a parka hood with a mile of fur trim or a giant house with your nickname tiled all over in knockoff glamour. But if \u201cThis Is Me \u2026 Now\u201d is to be believed, it\u2019s a mansion for one. She has only ever wanted to give us what she\u2019s wanted for herself yet never convincingly attained: comfort.<\/p>\n Lopez wants, needs, hungers, craves, desires, seeks, pines, wishes, dreams, hopes, believes, yearns, aches, hustles. You can see all of that in the hard violence of her dancing \u2014 nothing comes easy, nothing flows. It\u2019s a lot of bursts and breaks. (Here, she even keeps in the sound of the dancer\u2019s rustling fabric.) For 30 years she\u2019s been at this: Mere entertainment might not be enough. Lopez has always seemed out to prove, rarely to savor, relish or bask. On the 23-year-old remix of her hit song \u201cI\u2019m Real,\u201d Lopez coos that second word, transforming it from a declaration of fact to a matter of existential doubt.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Is Me \u2026 Now\u201d could easily have been fashioned as a pure valentine to her current husband, Ben Affleck; the album makes room for one, \u201cDear Ben, Pt. II.\u201d<\/a> Instead, Affleck can be found barking under coats of makeup as a cable news troll. Why not get him \u2014 or some other star \u2014 right next to her in a good romantic drama instead of what Lopez can be seen doing here, curling up on a huge couch mouthing Barbra Streisand\u2019s lines in \u201cThe Way We Were\u201d? Streisand\u2019s heart-wrenched seriousness could be Lopez\u2019s. She shares the artistic self-determinism that Streisand embodies, but opts to treat that strength like karaoke.<\/p>\n As a steward of her own image, Lopez might not believe<\/em> she has ever deserved relief, stability, happiness, a bath. A striver with a \u201crestless heart,\u201d as she puts it here, is simply who she is. Trying hard is what she knows. The most fascinating aspect of those newish Affleck Dunkin\u2019 ads<\/a> \u2014 all right, one <\/em>of the fascinating aspects \u2014 is that the Boston lunk he\u2019s playing finds himself auditioning for her, doing his endearingly embarrassing best to make a good musical impression. That guy knows what Dr. Joe and the Celebrity Zodiac don\u2019t. Worth and worthiness might be Lopez\u2019s love language.<\/p>\n The sad news is that nothing in \u201cThis Is Me \u2026 Now\u201d is as fun \u2014 or funny \u2014 as those commercials. This project doesn\u2019t seem to have brought Lopez any closer to serenity or levity. It\u2019s an occasion for even more toil. Again: She cast herself and a bunch of women to labor in a literal love factory, and the conditions are hazardous. No matter how powerful and playful Lopez seems on the live stage \u2014 in Las Vegas or in the concert scenes in her romantic comedy from two years ago, \u201cMarry Me,\u201d or during her 2020 Super Bowl halftime show with Shakira<\/a> \u2014 she often seems unsure in the movies, torn about how big or small, quiet or radiant to be. She seems stressed, maybe even neurotic. (She has also put her fictional self on a shrink\u2019s couch.) With a live performer, you want unquenchable. You\u2019re paying for Category 5 Force of Nature. But an actor needs at least a few scenes of believable rest, and onscreen, she can rarely, reliably locate peace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n