‘Marry Me’ and the everlasting appeal of a Jennifer Lopez rom-com

Ask anybody who is aware of her within the leisure trade they usually’ll let you know: Jennifer Lopez is the queen of the romantic-comedy style.

Positive, she’s additionally a world music sensation, dancer and mother to two youngsters. However on display screen, she shines in main roles the place viewers can’t look away from her characters’ journeys to discovering love.

Milo Ventimiglia, who performed her husband within the 2018 movie “Second Act,” informed NBC Information, “She’s bigger than life however someway probably the most relatable individual on this planet on the massive display screen.”

Tyler Posey, who performed her son in “Maid in Manhattan,” one in all her most well-known rom-coms, mentioned she “simply has a vulnerability that makes a rom-com, a rom-com. Individuals see that and acknowledge it and immediately fall in love together with her.”

And Kat Coiro, director of Lopez’s newest rom-com, “Marry Me,” described her because the “good” candidate for the lead.

The movie, which hits theaters Friday, is Lopez’s first rom-com since 2018. In it, Lopez performs Kat Valdez, a Latin pop celebrity who, in a second of impressed madness, marries a random viewers member named Charlie Gilbert (Owen Wilson) throughout a live performance efficiency after studying concerning the infidelity of her fiancé, Bastian (Maluma).

“Jennifer was the one one who can do that,” co-producer Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas mentioned. “It’s a must to have any person with that charisma and that stage presence.”

Because the movie unfolds, Kat and Charlie get to know one another as unlikely newlyweds, try and bridge the hole between their very completely different worlds and, in fact, discover real love.

The rom-com was by no means about “something aside from making a timeless movie that speaks to hope and escapism and love, in addition to related topics like social media and fame and loneliness,” Coiro mentioned. “It’s additionally an occasion. It’s a live performance expertise.”

Lopez was simply the main girl to make the movie really feel like an occasion.

A triple menace

J. Lo didn’t start her profession as an actor, not to mention a number one one in a romantic comedy.

She began as a backup dancer for large names like New Children on the Block and Janet Jackson, earlier than showing in a handful of TV reveals and flicks. She later landed her first breakout position as Selena within the 1997 biopic of the identical identify — a efficiency that garnered unanimous reward and catapulted her into the nationwide highlight. Then, in 1999, she launched her debut album, “On the 6,” cementing Lopez as a triple menace in Hollywood.

By the late ’90s, regardless of changing into a family identify after the discharge of “Selena” and her music, Lopez had but to land a lead position in a romantic comedy — the one purpose she had at the start of her Hollywood profession.

“After I first began, one of many issues that I wished to do, as a result of I used to be Puerto Rican, Latina, was that I wished to be in romantic comedies,” Lopez, who was not out there for an interview, mentioned in a Hollywood Reporter roundtable dialogue in November 2019.

She continued: “I felt like all the ladies in romantic comedies at all times appeared the identical means, they have been at all times white. And I used to be like, if I can do it and simply present that I’m each woman — as a result of I’m the hopeless romantic, I’m that — I’m the one working girl, I used to be these issues.”

“I bear in mind pondering, I have to be the lead in a romantic comedy,” she added.

Her desires got here to fruition when she snagged the lead within the 2001 movie “The Wedding ceremony Planner,” co-starring Matthew McConaughey.

“The very first thing I really like about J. Lo is that she at all times wished to make rom-coms, and he or she needed to push her method to get in,” mentioned Scott Meslow, the creator of “From Hollywood With Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Once more) of the Romantic Comedy,” a guide that explores the beloved style throughout its “golden period” within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s.

“She has a real ardour for rom-coms, and ‘The Wedding ceremony Planner’ was her first, a job that many actresses turned down. However she got here in, and it grew to become this enormous hit,” Meslow mentioned.

Many followers immediately felt related to the characters Lopez portrayed on-screen.

“I knew J. Lo as a number one girl in a rom-com earlier than I even knew her as a dancer or singer,” Kaitlin Gu, 27, mentioned.

Rising up, Gu, who’s Asian American, mentioned seeing somebody like Lopez in her favourite film style was notably essential.

“She was one of many solely nonwhite actors who have been in these main blockbuster romantic comedies, and that was so highly effective to see as a toddler,” Gu, who’s a software program engineer, mentioned. “Like, I’m a hopeless romantic, too!”

Meslow agreed, including that there’s a “groundedness” and universality to her performances “that speaks to the on a regular basis girl and actually any individual on the lookout for love.”

“She’s actually in a category of her personal,” Meslow mentioned.

Many on Twitter have already sung her praises or expressed pleasure about her return to the massive display screen.

““im free on feb 14” properly im not. im going to look at marry me a romcom starring jlo and owen wilson,” one person wrote.

“one other jlo romcom nature is therapeutic,” one other person wrote.

‘Profitable, magnetic and charismatic’

Any worries about J. Lo and her place in Hollywood have been rapidly assuaged after the field workplace success of “The Wedding ceremony Planner,” which grossed about $95 million towards a $35 million funds.

Over the previous twenty years, Lopez starred in different rom-coms, together with “Gigli” and “Jersey Lady” together with her then- (and now-) associate, Ben Affleck; the 2005 movie “Monster-in-Legislation” reverse star Michael Vartan; and the 2010 film “The Again-Up Plan” with actor Alex O’Loughlin.

Together with “Marry Me,” Lopez would be the main girl in one other rom-com later this 12 months: “Shotgun Wedding ceremony” with actor Josh Duhamel.

“It’s actually putting that her enthusiasm for rom-coms has by no means waned — and that actually interprets to her movies,” Meslow mentioned. “She has this extraordinary capacity to convey this heat and openness to all of her performances.”

“And to be that profitable, magnetic and charismatic in entrance of the display screen, each large and small — that’s such a singular of a expertise as a result of that’s laborious to do if you’re one of many largest pop stars on this planet,” Meslow mentioned.

In accordance with her co-stars, Lopez acts simply the identical behind the digital camera, as properly.

“Probably the most encouraging factor about Jen was that she needs to ensure that these characters have been plausible and that individuals might see themselves in these characters,” Ventimiglia mentioned. “She believes in herself. She believes what she experiences on set.”

Ventimiglia continued: “She’s not performing; she’s current. She’s good.”

Posey, who was 10 when he began filming “Maid in Manhattan,” mentioned Lopez was a “freaking superior” one who made him really feel “tremendous comfy” as a toddler actor.

“She was by no means late to set. She was as good to everybody in entrance of the digital camera as she was to individuals behind the digital camera, and he or she at all times made time for me,” he mentioned.

Posey added that at one level throughout filming, Lopez even gifted him an Xbox.

“She didn’t have to do this!” he mentioned. “Who does that?”

When requested if they’d see “Marry Me,” her followers and former co-workers all had the identical reply: a convincing sure.

Ventimiglia revealed that Lopez even shared the script with him, and he mentioned it was “fantastic.”

“I’m excited to see her in theaters,” he mentioned. “I imply, come on, she’s Jenny from the block!”