The Enduring Appeal of Jennifer Lopez
With her two recent romantic comedy films, the actress reminds us of why she is as enchanting as ever.
If, like me, you grew up in the ‘90s, you’ll know that the decade was something of an embarrassment of riches when it came to powerful female vocalists. Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston were both at the top of their game when the decade began and, as it ended, the career of Jennifer Lopez was very much on the rise. Indeed, she proved to be a true triple threat, able to dance, sing, and act, and everywhere you looked she was there, on both the Billboard charts and in the cinema.
It’s easy to see why this would be the case. For one thing, Lopez is enchantingly beautiful, and the camera, like her legions of fans, clearly adores her. It’s more than just her physical charms, though. She has that intangible quality that I can only refer to as “charisma,” in that she exudes an automatic appeal every time she appears on the screen. The fact that she can sing–and often does in her films–just makes her that much more dazzling. It’s hard not to be enchanted by someone who can compete successfully in so many areas of the entertainment industry.
Which brings us to her most recent cinematic efforts, 2022’s Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding. In the former, she stars as Kat Valdez, a pop music superstar whose planned concert wedding to her equally famous singer fiance goes disastrously awry when she discovers he’s been cheating with her assistant. On the spur of the moment, she instead proposes to Owen Wilson’s Charlie Gilbert, a lovable but boring math teacher who just happens to be at the concert holding a sign with the words “Marry Me” on it (a celebration of the celebrity couple’s hit single).
From the beginning, it’s clear there’s a connection between the two leads. Lopez is, of course, radiant and effortlessly appealing, particularly since Valdez’s own career and life seems to mirror her own (at least to a degree). For his part, Wilson is his usual charming and somewhat dorky self, someone who just wants to live a normal life without all of the hoopla that is always present in Kat’s hyper-public life. Things reach a crisis (as they always do in romantic comedies) before Kat, realizing that she really does want to be with Charlie, ends up going to a mathalon (yes, a mathalon), which is being hosted in Peoria.
And, dear reader, when Kat goes to that mathalon in flyover country, I found myself choking up. I know, I know, I can hear what you’re saying. The movie was just manipulating you, and you fell for it. What’s more, it’s such a predictable moment, because of course Kat was always going to end up with Charlie, no matter how different they are and no matter how much the odds are stacked against them. However, I am nothing if not a credulous viewer, and so I was quite willing to go along with it. And, of course, this moment is simply the essence of the romantic comedy, and it’s to Lopez’s and Wilson’s credit that they are able to sell it so convincingly.
Lopez’s undeniable charm and charisma is also very much in evidence in Shotgun Wedding, in which she plays one half of a couple who host a destination wedding. However, things go rapidly awry when the entire wedding party is kidnapped at gunpoint by a roving band of pirates. Once again, we have a romantic comedy that hits all of the right notes, and while it may not be a work of great cinematic art, I don’t think it needs or wants to be. There is, in fact, a virtue in a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, that doesn’t want to make some grand, sweeping statement about the nature of love or of middle-age or whatever. All it wants is to be entertaining, and on that score it more than succeeds. It has just the right amount of genuine romance and ridiculousness to entertain even the most cynical moviegoer.
This isn’t to say that Lopez is herself in any sense ordinary or unexceptional; far from it. In fact, I don’t think it’s going too far to say that these films work precisely because of Lopez’s talent and her already-extant star text. If, like me and other millennials, you came of age when she was appearing in films like The Wedding Planner, there is something almost therapeutic about seeing her return to the genre that helped to make her a star.
The success of Jennifer Lopez’s return to the romantic comedy is a good thing for both the genre and for movie stars generally. Though the rom-com seems to be making a bit of a comeback, it has so far struggled to attain the sort of critical success that it once enjoyed about mainstream film critics (both Marry Me and Shotgun Wedding have received mixed reviews). However, in the case of Marry Me, at least, there seems to be a bit of a disconnect, for while critics only rated it 61%, audiences gave it a 92% (meanwhile, the film earned some pretty significant streaming numbers for Peacock).
Lopez’s recent success is also good news for movie stars, at least for ones of a certain age. The idea of the “death of the movie star” is something that seems to have a lot of clout these days, as the blizzard of articles dealing with the subject demonstrates (for examples of this journalistic phenomenon, see here and here). Lopez, however, shines as brightly as she ever has. Just as importantly, it’s always nice to see people in middle age find love. There was a time, and not that long ago, when an actress of Lopez’s age would have to make peace with the fact that they were just going to fade into the background, condemned to playing mothers or grandmothers (Let me hasten to add that there is absolutely nothing wrong with such roles, just as there is nothing wrong with mothers and grandmothers in real life. It’s the automatic assumption that older women should only play those roles that is the problem).
Now, however, Lopez gets to show everyone just how much joy there is in life, and love, after 50. She is, in my estimation at least, one of the reigning queens of the romantic comedy. Long may she reign.