Jennifer Lopez joins Janet Jackson, Taylor Swift and Beyoncé as the most recent topic of her personal pop star documentary, although little doubt Lopez would recoil on the description: she can also be a film star, entrepreneur, philanthropist and extra, as Halftime (Netflix) typically reminds us. This vastly entertaining, if sometimes comically severe, movie follows Lopez from the day of her fiftieth birthday celebrations to the Tremendous Bowl half-time present she co-headlined with Shakira in 2020.
At first, the star of Halftime threatens to be Lopez’s diamond-encrusted drink cups, however there may be a lot to be fascinated by on this behind-the-curtains portrait of life as a megastar. Over 90 minutes, it reveals itself to be a curious, intriguing combine. Lopez doesn't maintain again on what displeases her. The NFL invitations her to do the Tremendous Bowl half-time present, and it's a uncommon honour, promising her an viewers of greater than 100 million viewers. However the joint invitation with Shakira rankles, and their allotted working time is much like what a solo act would have, which places the squeeze on; Lopez describes it as “the worst thought on the earth”. Her supervisor, Benny Medina, goes additional. “It was an insult to say you wanted two Latinas to do the job that one artist traditionally has executed,” he tells the digicam.
This hints at a extra attention-grabbing story, that emerges in suits and begins. Lopez denies that she is political, however she is the daughter of Puerto Rican dad and mom residing in Trump’s America, or what she calls “a United States I didn’t recognise”. She places youngsters in cages made of sunshine on stage, and clashes with the NFL over the concept (although at first the present’s director is extra perturbed by the “contentious” proposal of a stage the form of a feminine image). Her fiance, Ben Affleck, seems to debate the tabloid ferocity she skilled early on in her profession. When he requested her if it bothered her, she says she replied: “I’m Latina, I’m a lady, I anticipated this.”
The documentary briefly takes on a Framing Britney Spears crusading tone, highlighting the worst tabloid therapy she skilled, and the numerous instances she was the butt of the joke, on late-night chatshows, on South Park. Till I watched this, I had forgotten that after a robust begin, Lopez’s performing profession turned seen as a punchline. She thinks she has made 40 motion pictures (“I don’t know, one thing like that”), but it surely took Hustlers, the movie about pole-dancers that she produced and stars in, for her to be taken significantly as an actor once more. It gained her a Golden Globe nomination and speak of a potential Oscar nod, although we watch her disappointment as this fails to materialise.
That is the place it will get trickier. Positioning a shocking, multitalented pop star, film star and businesswoman as an underdog shouldn't be totally convincing as a story thread. Not getting an Oscar nomination is a heartache most viewers will discover it laborious to narrate to. She seems longing for approval, telling her 70-year-old physician he ought to see her in Hustlers. In one of the crucial endearing scenes, she reads a household group message thread discussing an American soccer match. One among her sisters brings up the great opinions for Hustlers; there's a transient acknowledgment, earlier than everybody will get again to the vital matter of the sport. She has a tough relationship together with her mom. Her curves made her an outlier in late 90s/early 00s Hollywood. The tabloid bunfight over her romantic and private life gave her “very low shallowness”.
I don’t doubt it, however concurrently Lopez is, even now, making an attempt to show herself, the reality is plain: she merely is a star. The clips of her early movies are a reminder of what a robust run she had in Hollywood, and she or he is again on monitor on the field workplace once more. The scenes of her coaching her dancers for the half-time present are unimaginable (“It takes some time to heat as much as me,” she tells them), as is the present itself. The movie ends together with her acting at President Biden’s inauguration after which an inventory of her successes in numbers: gross sales figures, grosses, social media stats, streams. Any viewers watching a feature-length movie about her profession is unlikely to want convincing that she has made it. Who's it for?
“The world is listening,” says Lopez, firstly of Halftime. “What am I gonna say?” On the finish of it, I solely half knew. The movie is as slick and flattering as you may anticipate, however it's also sincere and revealing, a minimum of on the floor – although maybe it offers away greater than she supposed.
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