We need to talk about Jennifer Lopez
Overexposed? Maybe. Underappreciated? Definitely. From Out Of Sight to Hustlers to Halftime, why it's time to reassess the actress behind the celebrity
Film Features Jennifer Lopez
Fresh off of her overdue wedding to Ben Affleck (in a subdued, perfectly rom-com worthy Vegas ceremony, no less) on July 16, and just days away from her 53rd birthday on July 24—a nearly incomprehensible fact for ordinary human beings who actually look their age—Jennifer Lopez seems to be living her best life these days.
Her Netflix documentary Halftime—a catch-all chronicle of her performance at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2020, her awards-season campaign for the film Hustlers, and the path that she followed to earn those extraordinary opportunities—premiered last month to strong reviews, and suggested that Lopez is pursuing more projects than ever that she truly loves, both personally and professionally. July also marks the 4K release of Steven Soderbergh’s Out Of Sight, featuring one of her best performances, a welcome reminder that Lopez has always been a better actor than people—and possibly even Lopez herself—give her credit for.
Nominated eight times for Golden Raspberry Awards (not counting a “Razzie Redeemer Award”), but just twice for Golden Globes, and never for an Oscar, it’s easy to confuse some of the movies in which she has appeared with what she brings to them. But since her days as a backup dancer in the music video for Janet Jackson’s “That’s The Way Love Goes,” Lopez has stolen scenes, films, and hearts with her toughness and versatility. Those qualities are sometimes overshadowed by her ambition and her visibility; and yet based on statements by Lopez, it’s almost understandable why one might not fully see—or would at least undervalue—what she has achieved in her career.
In Halftime Lopez reveals something surprising, and crucial, about her work, or at least how she sees it. Describing her role in Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers, where she played Ramona, the hard-working mastermind behind a network of strippers, Lopez observed, “This was the first role where there was no hiding any part of myself.” As a fan, the question you can’t help asking in response is, how can that be true?
It’s an interesting statement from a person whose dedication and hard work are clearly evident in everything they do, although obviously making an effort and showing vulnerability are not the same thing. But as someone who counts Out Of Sight among his all-time favorite films—its romantic chemistry works because of the dogged persistence and steely vulnerability Lopez delivers opposite George Clooney—her quote seems almost to devalue how good she has been on so many occasions. And that just happens to be my favorite of her films; The Cell, Shall We Dance?, U Turn and, of course, Selena, among many others all have passionate fan followings, because of her terrific work in each of them.
Kino Lorber’s 4K release offers a timely excuse—ahem, opportunity—to revisit Out Of Sight. It was Soderbergh’s mainstream breakthrough, and the first film where George Clooney, as career bank robber Jack Foley, stopped wiggling during performances like a bobblehead on a car’s dashboard (a fact that Clooney himself acknowledges in the commentary track). But it’s Lopez’s performance as U.S. Marshal Karen Sisco that provides the emotional glue between the project’s commercial trendiness (as an Elmore Leonard adaptation following Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, and as a post-Pulp Fiction bump for stories about colorful, talkative scofflaws) and its lasting heat as a sophisticated and decidedly grown-up love story.
The performances are consistently great, which makes it an easy movie to love. But from the first scene with Karen, where her doting father Marshall (Dennis Farina) cheerfully gifts her a handgun for her birthday, it’s clear that Lopez can hold her own against an ensemble of titans—some leads, some veteran character actors. Scott Frank’s script vividly showcases her strength and intelligence, as when she reacts instinctively to the jail break that puts her and Jack into the trunk of the car where their mutual attraction first sparks, as well as in her tireless capacity to outwit Steve Zahn’s Glenn Michaels. Lopez makes Karen’s choices feel appropriately reflexive, even effortless, for a celebrated career law enforcement officer who will not be diminished or sidelined by anyone. But she also conveys the more important and more difficult quality of being helpless in the face of something, or rather someone, that Karen should know better than to get involved with.
That Soderbergh makes Clooney look like especially tantalizing forbidden fruit—in a dream sequence she walks in on him soaking in a tub rather than the other way around, as you might traditionally expect—certainly provides a lot of fuel for Lopez to light Karen’s fire. But this is a driven, dedicated career woman who shot one of the men she previously dated. Lopez captures the complexity of the character’s resistance to making a similar mistake again, and her history of ending up in the romantic crosshairs of a man she knows may not be good for her.
Her capacity to pivot between these extremes, often within the same scene, makes Karen and Jack’s developing relationship feel extremely powerful, especially during the centerpiece sequence leading up to when they consummate their attraction. After fearlessly—and again, effortlessly—shooting down a trio of trade-fair dipshits who try to buy her a drink, Karen adopts with Jack exactly the kind of coltish naivete that those would-be suitors hoped to prey upon, briefly fulfilling a desperate hope that their affair wasn’t complicated by the reality of their circumstances. Lopez does it again after a sex scene that manages to be extremely sexy in its freeze-framed modesty. It feels at once too chaste for the tension that she and Clooney have generated until that point, but also possesses an anachronistic edge, appropriate for the film’s references to Three Days Of The Condor and other ’70s standard-bearers.
By the time Karen is forced to decide whether or not to shoot Jack during the robbery of Ripley’s home, you feel the desperation in her voice that she doesn’t want to make that choice, especially after compromising what the characters thought was her integrity by falling for him in the first place. Lopez is absolutely mesmerizing, and she makes you forget that the story seemed to belong to Clooney’s character at the beginning—especially because it’s her that you see last in the film, outsmarting Jack, the cops that are bringing him back to prison, and perhaps even herself.
That’s just one role in a career of 30-plus years. But one could dig into a number of her other performances for similar highlights, whether or not they generated the same attention or acclaim. (Angel Eyes, for example, may not be a great film, but she’s great in it as a much different kind of police officer than in Out Of Sight.) And so the question that remains is whether Lopez truly did not give herself to those other roles in the way that she did for Hustlers, to truly not hide any part of herself, or if she simply is so good that those qualities come out of her performances more than she realizes.
Jennifer Lopez certainly deserves more recognition than she sometimes receives, but when someone works as hard as she does for so long, sometimes it’s easier to see the hard work than the result of it—even for the person who’s expending it. Yet, with Halftime and the skillfully self-aware rom-com Marry Me earlier this year, she continues to display examples of her diverse talent. In the meantime, the awards-season recognition that she received for Hustlers specifically underscores how remarkable she was in Scafaria’s project, but one hopes that the powers that be—and that she herself—will in the future more readily recognize that being remarkable is not exceptional in the context of a career as accomplished as hers.
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She’s worth $400 million. We are out here starving and inflation shows no signs of slowing down. How much more recognition do rich and famous powerful celebrities need exactly?
Maybe avoid this site if you don’t want to read about famous people.
“Maybe avoid this site.”- The AV Club
Okay, but when we are done we need to talk about The SPR3. Did you know that in less than six months they will begin celebrating their 20th anniversary? It’s true! Also, have you seen their newest music video? It was released six days ago and if you want to see the uncensored version you will have to go to http://www.TheSPR3.com !
I share her birthday. Other neat July 24th-ers are Alexandre Dumas, Amelia Earhart, Barry Bonds, Kristen Chenoweth, Michael Richards, Ruth Buzzi, Bella Abzug, Karl Malone, Rick Fox, Mara Wilson, and Emily Bett Rickards. And most fun of all, both Lynda Carter and Patty Jenkins!
Happy early birthday!
Out of Sight, IMO, is easily both the best movie that she’s been in, and her best role/performance. In her earlier career she was in a lot more interesting movies – namely U Turn, Out of Sight, and The Cell – but afterwards she went for almost exclusively rom-com fluff. I think Hustlers is a bit overrated but at least it was something more meaty than she had typically been doing. But all told, I’m not buying a re-evaluation of her being a special actor.
And the Selina biopic.
Selena* (sorry, had to). Yeah she was kinda perfect that role at the time, true, though I think the movie itself isn’t special at all, a really conventional musician biopic. But that was one of her better performances that I’ve seen, sure.
thanks for catching the typo and yeah very strong performance for such a newcomer.
And her guest role on How I Met Your Mother.
I think she could have improved her skills a lot more and been really something if she was less worried about being this glamorous woman. There is always something weirdly reserved about her performances, like she is holding back because she is afraid of potential criticism.
I don’t know if that makes sense.
Beyoncé is the same as an actress. There is still a barrier there to her performance.
I feel that Tiny Tim at his peak was the same way.
Oh that totally makes sense, and I get that same vibe from a lot of her performances too.
My favorite scene is where she tussles with Isiah Washington, and after humbling him, drops a fantastic line:“You wanted to tussle? We tussled,” as she collapses the baton she just used to fend him off.
She was good in Blood and Wine too, but yeah, Out of Sight is a masterpiece, and she’s fantastic in it.
U-Turn was one of those movies I remember really liking when I first saw it…at age 12. I wonder if it holds up now.
Yeah honestly I think people, both critics and public, are way too quick to heap praise on an actor who comes from a non-traditional background. The Oscar talk for her in Hustlers was ridiculous. She’s rated perfectly fine – a relatively talented performer who’s got some highs and some real lows.
I don’t know that I buy that. One could say the same thing about Samuel L. Jackson. If your audience likes those roles, then there’s nothing wrong with staying in your genre.Rom Com fluff was a very popular genre back then in much the same way Marvel movies are today. Is she a special talent? Probably not. But she is certainly a lot better than she is thought of primarily because critics hate Rom Coms.
I’m giving her “Blood & Wine” too – held her own very well opposite Nicholson & Caine, no easy feat.
Lopez, early on, was making brave choices in picking interesting films. I don’t know if her acting was really that good, but I found her movie career interesting (her music isn’t my thing, tbh) and was curious at where it will lead her and how much more she’ll improve at her craft.
Now, she seems more of a manufactured star product of our times and that early acting career of taking risks is gone now.
Yeah, even this article basically only uses Out of Sight as evidence.
Out Of Sight is a great movie. But what I can’t believe i’m the first to say in here is, hey, whatever the hell keeps her from singing, FILM IT. my love don’t cost a THEEEEIIIIIEEEEINNG
Why?
Oh man I loved Enough when I was a baby queer boy. Loved seeing her beat the shit out of that piece of shit and I was like “One day I’ll get you my bullies while wearing a wig!” Anyway, the gal can act, she also seems fine to phone it in for mediocre movies.Affleck can be pretty bad himself, but also amazing. That’s just like any of us in our workplaces isn’t it?
Haha, I was coming here to talk about Enough. As a baby queer, I fished Enough and Double Jeopardy out of a 2 for $5 bin and spent far too many summer afternoons having a “She did that!!!” double feature while questioning if I could really call myself a lesbian since I would maybe let Bruce Greenwood frame me for murder.I don’t get the need to pretend that she’s a bad actress and chalk her good performances up to the director. I agree that she’s a good actress who’ll phone it in on crappier projects, but who cares when to this day I still scream when I’m out and about and “Get Right” comes on. What a bop.
I agree.
I don’t think it’s fair when a movie’s performances are “unilaterally great.” If there’s greatness, it should be mutual.Now, when a movie’s performances are “universally great,” that’s something I can get behind.
Out of Sight is merely proof that a great director can make anyone look like a decent actor. There’s nothing I’ve seen in J.Lo’s other performances that’s suggested to me that she has some exceptional talent we’ve been overlooking all this time.
Yeah, she’s mediocre at best on screen; you could sub in countless actors of the same caliber and get the same performance or better. Off screen she’s repeatedly been a toxic, shitty person. There’s plenty of documentation out there of her abusing concrete venue staff, her own staff, co-stars and crew, etc., if anyone cares to take an even cursory look.
I’ve only watched Out of Sight once and I remember thinking the entire time how this would be a great movie…if the lead actress wasn’t so completely leaden and inert. I owe it to myself to give it another shot but on that first viewing I was stunned by how out of her depth Lopez came across.
Yeah, maybe give it another go? She and Clooney have great chemistry (imo.)
It’s a pretty damn good movie in spite of her (I agree that she’s pretty “meh” in it). The best part about it is watching that astounding supporting cast (including then unknown Viola Davis and the VERY underrated-who-shoud-be-more-famous-but-isn’t-but-hopefully-maybe-one-day Paul Calderon).
She’s up there because people wish they could fuck her. They aren’t all secret geniuses.
She was done no favors by one of her first films being a goofy schlockfest in which she actually says the line “This film was supposed to be my big break, but it’s become a big disaster.”
Money Train?
I think she’s been properly assessed. Most of the time she’s mediocre to terrible, but sometimes she pops, when the circumstances are right. Soderbergh gets the best out of everyone, and in Hustlers she was just Jenny from the block who became a stripper instead of a dancer.
She’s only gotten more beautiful with age
She is incredibly smart and extremely talented and makes (mostly) excellent choices when it comes to work. I think she is also very self-aware when it comes to separating who she is from the public persona people see.
You know what, we really don’t.
The “critical reevaluation” of old stuff seems to have become a staple schtick of modern pop culture journalism and is never as compelling as the author thinks. But, perhaps in 20 years, we will revisit this genre with a fresh perspective.
This is the kind of underrated comment we’ll only appreciate years from now.
We Don’t Need To Talk About J-Lo, No No No
Best post all month. Bravo.
Missy Elliott warrants examination. Jennifer Lopez, tho? Her greatest achievement is looking good for her age. For someone with mild talent as a singer and actor she managed to carve out a space for herself. But as far as the content of her work it’s nothing of importance.
Yes, she looks great for her age with a professional makeup artist, and she’s a great, underappreciated actress that has accomplished much in spite of Gigli and having ghost singers perform in her place while being credited as backup singers. But I can’t really put out of my mind how she’s historically been an elitist snob, and I doubt she’s changed. She talked shit about actresses Salma Hayek, Claire Danes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Winona Ryder, Cameron Diaz, and Madonna (although she’s about Madonna), all in a single interview. The aforementioned Super Bowl halftime show, she hated sharing the stage with Shakira, because me me me.There’s several reports of her ignoring service people and making her assistant handle all those interactions. When a maid at a German hotel asked her for an autograph, she complained and the maid was fired. She performed at a dictator’s birthday party and she blamed her own representatives for not Googling him first. There was a report about assistants working in her home who were not allowed to talk to or make eye contact with her. Like her work as much as you want, I have The Cell on DVD, but as a person? Expect clapback on every puff piece.
That’s ok. I’d rather spend time lauding genuinely great performances from great actors.
On the way home from work last night I contemplated the absurdity of Jennifer Lopez. As a public figure. A person. She desperately pleaded from the radio speakers that she was still “Jenny from the block”, but I doubt that this had ever been the case. A flute incessantly repeated a devil’s lullaby, while other gentlemen, who I have come find out were Jadakiss and Styles P (in this case collectively known as LOX) said words about things, including the hood. Of note is her assertion that “staying real” is like breathing. I too, have felt this. We all have our burdens.The entertainer Pitbull (himself a ludicrous person) once referred to JLo (a clever nickname for Jennifer Lopez) as “his angel”. This delights me. It’s the same feeling you get when you see a video of a dog that has befriended a wayward fawn, and your eyes shine as they cavort in some guy’s backyard.A google search reveals that she is quoted as saying “There are certain people that are marked for death…” which I think demonstrates that it was not all sunshine and smiles for Jenny (Jennifer) on that block. Elsewhere, she offers this bit of wisdom: “The bear is what we all wrestle with.” She has her own page on brainyquote.com, which can only exist due to some sort of ‘Make a Wish Foundation’ request being fulfilled for a sick child with strange sense of humor.In summary, I think that we all know these key facts about Jennifer “JLo” Lopez: 1.) She repeatedly dated and/or married Ben Affleck 2.) She has/had a notable butt. 3.) Pitbull
Fun fact: 100% of articles that begin with the words “We need to talk” are guaranteed to be about something we absolutely do not need to talk about.
Corollary of Betteridge’s Law.
Corollary of Betteridge’s Law.
J-Lo is 52? I’m sorry, what?
“We need to talk about Jennifer Lopez Affleck”FIFY
I never thought she was a bad actor. She just mostly starred in movies that I have no desire to ever see. I’m sure if I saw Maid in Manhattan or Monster-In-Law her acting would be the least of my criticisms of those movies.
We need to talk about Jennifer Lopez
Kate Hudson is the White JLo.
I worked at a theater during the height of Bennifer, and something that stuck out to me with that block of films was that everything felt too calculated.
The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan, Enough, it all felt like extensions of a brand. Out of Sight Lopez is the one I fell in love with, and those films weren’t that. Enough even had a tie-in single by her, which felt really gross and exploitative given the subject matter.
Oddly, I found her failures at the time way more interesting. I don’t think anyone would call Angel Eyes a great film or even a good one, but she committed 100% to the rawness and vulnerability the role required. Her character essentially got ostracized for doing the right thing, and you can see how that was tearing her character up inside.
I’m even one of the fortunate few who saw Gigli in theaters, and all the rumors are true. It’s a terrible movie. But again, she committed to the terrible dialogue and I have to respect that.
Then you see her in tabloids or shilling perfume and I’m like, “Ugh, this isn’t what I wanted…”
She is prodigiously talented (as a singer and dancer) and charismatic, but I think she’s ironically benefitting now from having a relatively modest career history as an actress. We judge her for being often good, sometimes great performances for a stretch, then a nearly two decade slumming period, before returning to some good stuff. She is far from the top tier, IMO. The thing that’s happening for her now, ironically, is she is finding she can still play to her niche. That’s great as a defiance of ageism, but she is not artistically elastic like, e.g., Amy Adams, Viola Davis, Kathy Bates, Margo Martindale, Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain, Glenn Close, Olivia Colman, and gads of others. I’d say JLo is ultimately becoming what crossover musicians aspire to in acting, but not much more.
We really don’t…
She was good in Out of Sight, though I think her best performance is in Angel Eyes, even though it’s an otherwise bad movie. I don’t even get the lauditory response to her performance in Hustlers. It was fine. There’s not much to reassess here.Her biggest real life strength is being and incredibly shrewd, and controlling, businessperson. She’s brilliantly controlled her image and leveraged her potential worth in entertainment and advertising. At the same time, there are way too many reports of JLo being endlessly awful to the people who “serve” her. Hell, that even extends to her fairly recently having her team photoshop Shakira out of the banners she for the Halftime Show. Halftime, the “documentary” makes her look even worse in my opinion. Especially with the follow up reporting. It’s so overly curated, and tries to present an underdog story for someone who averages around $40 million a year in income and has a net worth of over half a billion dollars. She admits that she’s always avoided politics but seeing kids in cages at the border made her suddenly want the cage stage settings, and presents it like it was her idea, when it was Shakira’s, and implies that it’s somewhat racist that the NFL headlined two Latina performers rather than just giving it all to her. JLo isn’t considered much of a Latinx performer in the Latinx music community to begin with. She can’t even speak Spanish. So it’s just wildly hypocritical of her to imply she’s some bastion of Latino culture pop music. When Shakira has lived her life in Latin America, in Columbia, and still resides there.
Do we, though?
Can we maybe permanently retire the “We Need to Talk About _____” title form? Nothing against J-Lo, Out of Sight is great.
The Razzies says it all. So she’s kept in shape and is horny AF, well, nice thing for normal women to aspire to but the constant cynical moves to capture the gossip pages says it all…..besides the Razzies…..
“we need to talk about Jennifer Lopez”I can’t imagine an instance in which that would be the case.
I knew she was a generational talent once I saw The Wedding Planner. Maid in Manhattan cemented it.
Out of Sight will forever be in the Top 5 of underrated movies for so many reasons including J. Lo’s performance. (But seriously, how many great performances are there in that movie?)
Out of Sight is great and she’s great in it, but that’s about it. To call her underappreciated when she is incredibly overappreciated especially as a singer, just because she is “under” critically-appreciated, kind of misses that she has made mass market crap most of her life, intentionally. There are some people who just aren’t amazing diamonds. Also Hustlers is bad.
No. No we don’t need to talk about her. She is everywhere, all the time, all at once, and I am tired of seeing endless headlines about her every single day. Please make it stop.