The Jennifer Lopez rom-com is almost unspeakably dumb, which is precisely why it’s great.
It ’s toilsome to imagine , butMarry Mecasts Jennifer Lopez against type . Maid in Manhattan , The Wedding Planner , Monster - in - Law , What to Expect When You ’re Expecting , The Back - up Plan , Second Act — in those romantic comedies , Lopez portray working - class everywomen largely divorced from her picture as one of the world ’s most glamorous soda pop idols . However , Marry Me(now playing in theater of operations and available onPeacock ) open up with Lopez in a rehearsal studio , practicing stage dancing for the moving-picture show ’s catchytitular song . She play Kat Valdez , who is , well , one of the world ’s most glamorous pop idols .
But do n’t be fooled by the rock that she ’s got . In traditional J.Lo - rom - com fashion , Kat is as unlucky in honey as the rest of ‘ em . As Hoda Kotb announces in aTodayshow section that sets up the film ’s conceitedness , Kat and “ hot , hot , hot Bastian”—a fellow musical sexual practice symbolisation act by Maluma — are plan to swop vows onstage at a livestreamed concert the following nighttime . This wo n’t be Kat ’s first marriage , nor her next : Seconds before ascending a riser pipe in an enormous intriguer wedding gown glittering with 10,000 hand - beaded crystals , Kat find out via TMZ that Bastian has been cheating on her with her help . While monologuing about her suffering , Kat peers into the gang , recognise a guy wire listlessly holding his acquaintance ’s “ tie me ” sign , and says yes .
What more could anyone expect from today ’s rom - com high priestess , someone who seems pathologically we five hundred to the writing style ’s most absurd tendency ? InThe Back - up program , Lopez urgently wants to be a mother and , upon key her IVF intervention has result in counterpart , commits to elevate them with a high mallow Fannie Merritt Farmer ( Alex O’Loughlin ) she has just met . Second Actfinds Lopez fabricate her intact résumé and landing a job as a product developer at a cosmetics conglomerate , only to discover — batty spoiler alert — that her colleague ( Vanessa Hudgens ) is the daughter she gave up as a teenager . In the woebegottenGigli , she ’s a cocksure lesbian press to monitor a low - rip gangster ( Ben Affleck ) who has kidnapped a United States attorney ’s mentally challenged brother in a ransom money schema .
Image by Chineme Elobuike for Thrillist
Marry Mewould make a strong showcase for the No . 1 slot on a list of J.Lo read-only memory - coms ranked harmonize to their ridiculousness — not only because the premise is loopy , but because the gentleman’s gentleman she plucks out of the interview is a math teacher wager by Owen Wilson , arguably the least Lopezian equal thus far , on- or off - projection screen . Andalsobecause the whole matter kind of doubles as a mirror on Lopez herself . After a Nox ’s rest , Kat is hell - bent on on “ getting out in front of this , ” make up one’s mind she ’ll stay with this math teacher for the time being in purchase order to “ switch the narrative . ” No longer will she be seen as an impetuous , unbeloved divorcée . This is Image Creation 101 , a syllabus Lopez could write herself ; just look at her on-going tabloid - favorable ( andNew York Times - friendly ) canoodle with Affleck , whosereappearance in her lifeput a fleet end to most of the Alex Rodriguez detachment gossip .
During a recentCBS Morningsinterview , Gayle King asked Lopez if she is a hopeless romanticist . “ A hopefulromantic , ” she respond , which is on the dot what Kat Valdez would say . Luckily for Kat , her romanticism plump from hope to reality . While sleuth a human relationship image , she actually fall for this math instructor , who is also an super considerate single father with a constant of gravitation - rated swing in his flat and a sleepyheaded English bulldog named Romeo . “ It ’s not about fame — it ’s about believability , ” Kat tells the innocuous swing owner as they are first aim to make out each other . “ It did n’t matter how successful I was ; they never gave it to me . You bonk I ’ve never been nominate for anything ? ” This , of course , is precisely what Jennifer Lopez , who is hardly a critical ducky , would say , specially aftermissing out on the Oscar nodshe deserved for2019’sHustlers .
As their bond deepens , Kat and her humble mathlete make bold each other to swap roles : She will live without courting net attention or receiving assistant from her many attendee , and he will relinquish his social media electrical resistance to shoot TikTok dances . This is a artifice Lopez herself likely would n’t entertain , but it does n’t matter either way because she is the sort of traditional paparazzi magnet for whom a individualized Instagram account will always be substandard to thewell - calculated IRL photosthat labor authenticity . The unfortunate matter aboutMarry Me , like most J.Lo rom - coms , is that it its cute stratagem do n’t yield many actual laughs . If any of them did , their unflinching slow-wittedness might not read quite so loudly . ( This one is lead byGirls5eva ’s Kat Coiro and write byThe Mindy Project ’s Harper Dill andCatwoman ’s John Rogers . )
Owen Wilson and Jennifer Lopez in ‘Marry Me’|Universal Pictures
Then again , is n’t dumbness what we want from most rom - coms ? Sure , it ’d be nice to recapture the halcyon years of Howard Hawks or Nora Ephron , whose tedious aesthesia brought worldliness to an inherently fanciful genre . But without many filmmakers taking up their mantle , one has to look up to Lopez ’s dedication to playscript this witless , baffling , and delightful . Come June , we ’ll happen out whatShotgun Wedding , in which Lopez and Josh Duhamel disrupt their destination nuptials to economise their families from criminal highjacker , has in store . If all conk well , it ’ll be as deliriously unintelligent asMarry Me .
