We've been hearing news about Jennifer Lopez's planned narrative film This Is Me...Now: The Film — a visual companion to her upcoming ninth studio album This Is Me...Now — for a while now. However, this week fans finally got their first peek at the musical film on the 2024 movie schedule when the trailer dropped on Wednesday, January 17. And the general reaction is, for lack of a better word, dumbfounded.
Unlike more straightforward concert films like those that followed Beyoncé's and Taylor Swift's recent tours, This Is Me...Now: A Love Story is described by Prime Video as "an intimate, fantastical and narrative-driven reflection of Lopez’s journey to find love" inspired by songs off the new album. (Both the album and film will drop on the same day, FYI: Friday, February 16, so have your Prime Video subscriptions ready.) Fans got their first extended look at it when this trailer dropped:
The clip — which features the singer-actress in a baffling sequence of scenes, including a motorcycle ride across salt flats with her real-life husband Ben Affleck, a choreography breakdown in the middle of a steel mill and, seemingly, a therapy session with her "Hold You Down" collaborator Fat Joe — is hilariously being described by fans as "a documentary that’s also a biopic that’s also a visual album that’s also a commercial."
Several X users have jokingly likened the mysterious, meandering film to mind-bending titles like Cloud Atlas and Everything Everywhere All at Once:
Label person: so Jennifer, what were you thinking regarding visuals for this album? A few music vids, maybe a concert fi-JLo: I am going to fucking make Cloud Atlas... https://t.co/ahw7mzrs3UJanuary 17, 2024
Another X user, @intakswife, was flabbergasted not only by the frequent genre-switching throughout the trailer but also by the sheer scope of celebrity cameos in the film, which include Trevor Noah, Kim Petras, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara and, most oddly, American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (who, ironically, once roasted one of Ben Affleck's best-known movies.)
So it’s a sci-fi action musical rom-com?? with neil degrasse tyson….
Some social-media posters, like @DJLouieXIV, praised how "absolutely unhinged" the trailer is, a direct result of Lopez's "outsized ambition":
I have to say, this absolutely unhinged ass visual album trailer from JLo has worked on me. I'm genuinely (and perhaps morbidly??) excited to see what this thing is about in a way that that flop ass single would never have made me.
Culture writer Hunter Harris joked that after watching the trailer, she now better understands the romantic connection between Lopez and Affleck, "a guy with a giant tattoo of a phoenix" taking up his entire back:
I watch that jlo trailer and it's like ... no I totally see how her soul mate is a guy with a giant tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes on his entire back
Despite not entirely understanding "WTF JLo is trying to do with that movie," @paniniRPG says they will be making time to watch "the mess and might live tweet it":
idk wtf jlo is trying to do with that movie.. musical/visual album/novella but it looks like a sequel to THE CELL and that movie ate (and TO ME contributed to her vanguard award, dont @ me). so unfortunately I'm gonna have watch it for the mess and might live tweet it
As for Lopez herself, she celebrated the trailer's release on her Instagram account on Wednesday, posting it as well as the caption:
I have not been this nervous, excited, scared and thrilled to share something with you in years!! The story of the journey from This Is Me …Then to This Is Me … Now is the most personal thing I’ve ever done.
Personal, sure. Perplexing AF? Absolutely. Consider us seated and ready!
