Celebrity (usartical) There are numerous references to Ben Affleck Jennifer Lopez’s new musical film “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story,” including an appearance by the actor himself.
However, their relationship—more especially, their 2003 broken engagement—inspired one scene in particular.
at a bleak dream sequence, Lopez plays a hardworking employee at a “heart factory.” Abruptly, an alarm goes out alerting the workers to an imminent disaster: the giant mechanical heart at the center of the factory is failing. As the two started to develop the movie, Lopez told Meyers about her breakup with Affleck when she was just twenty-one years old and the pain it caused. (She experienced a divorce and another failed relationship prior to getting back together with Affleck almost twenty years later.)
“She felt the brunt of their first breakup,” Meyers said to Business Insider. She talked about that more than I had anticipated, and I could see that she was still in a lot of agony.The scene is highly dramatic, intricate, and full of action. Meyers claimed such impression was deliberate; he visualized heartbreak as a “life or death” circumstance by drawing inspiration from movies like “Titanic” and “Howl’s Moving Castle.”
“This heartbreak that she went through is very real, and how do we tell an audience that could give a shit?” Meyers gave an explanation. “A callous audience that would be like, ‘Oh, who cares?’ would be more concerned than a Jen fan, who would give a shit. That “you’ve got it all” mentality. How do we convey the gravity of the situation, as well as the intensity and volume of what heartbreak feels like for her and everyone else?””Hearts and Flowers,” the ninth song on Lopez’s companion album “This Is Me…Now,” is performed live at the factory.
Within the song’s lyrics, she describes herself as a “wounded soldier,” narrating her lifelong search for love against an electronic beat.
Lopez’s character in the movie is symbolic in that she wants to mend the shattered heart. After getting dressed, she enters the machine and is flung around by explosions and flames.
“Jen’s got this raw toughness to her, and so I wanted to figure out how to exploit that,” Meyers explained. “I just thought, ‘She would be someone who would work her fucking ass off to make sure the heart doesn’t die,’ and she has in real life.” Lopez was up about her difficult past with Affleck in a recent interview with Variety.
Meeting on the “Gigli” set in 2001, the couple soon became a media obsession. Days before their wedding, they called it quits after two years of dating, blaming “excessive media attention.”
Lopez stated to Variety, “The strain of the situation caused our relationship to fall apart.” We had to part ways since we didn’t know how to handle losing our sense of self. Both he and I had to come to terms with who we were.”
Following their breakup, Lopez is followed throughout the film. Her persona is presented as an unhealthy dating habituation and hopeless romantic. She joins with other self-described “love addicts” and sets off on a voyage of self-discovery that ultimately brings her back to Affleck after a string of failed relationships and romantic missteps.
Despite making a very brief appearance in the film, Affleck clearly has an impact. Actually, Lopez drew inspiration for the album from love letters he’d written to her. (Another tune that clearly demonstrates his influence is “Dear Ben Pt. II,” which is a follow-up to her 2002 single “Dear Ben.”)
According to Lopez, “I’ve been on this journey, and I’ve been trying to figure it out,” Variety reported. “I feel like I have something to give now that Ben and I have rediscovered one other and are married. This is the pivotal work that will bring the project to an end.