Why Are We Doing This Again? Does No One Remember ‘Gigli’?

The most baffling trailer took over the internet yesterday. It was a first look into Jennifer Lopez’s movie This Is Me… Now: A Love Story. A movie that is about Lopez’s “resilient heart,” it seems to be a mix of musical elements, choreography, and a series of men that she marries and how these relationships effect her.

One man in the film (though we don’t see him in the trailer) is none other than Lopez’s real-life husband: Ben Affleck. Now, if you were old enough, you probably remember Bennifer. While Affleck was married to another Jennifer (he was previously married to Jennifer Garner and the two share Violet, Seraphina Rose, and Samuel Affleck together), the Bennifer title belonged to Affleck and Lopez. For 2 years, from 2002-2004, Bennifer was the talk of Hollywood and the tabloids. We were all fascinated by this New York girl with a Boston boy, who are now back together.

Gigli, a romantic comedy they starred in back in 2003, is famously a horrible movie. With Affleck still on the high of the 1997 film Good Will Hunting and Lopez becoming a rom-com darling with films like The Wedding Planner and Maid in Manhattan, the film was (at the time, from what I remember as a child) getting buzz simply because we were seeing the couple together onscreen.

What we got was a bad movie. In it, they played gangsters, trying to kidnap a child for their boss but falling in love in the process. It was a baffling movie that was filled with barely any chemistry from the two leads, who were a couple.

While Gigli is often the movie people call back to, the two were also in another movie together—and a much better one at that.

And it wasn’t the only movie they did together …

A year later, the same year that Bennifer would come to an end, the movie Jersey Girl was released. I remember this movie very clearly because of the ending moments (where Affleck and George Carlin perform a number from Sweeney Todd at a kids’ talent show). Lopez’s role in the film is playing Affleck’s wife, the issue here being that she dies at the beginning of the film.

Gertrude (Lopez) dies, and we watch as Affleck’s Ollie struggles to raise their daughter on his own, as Gertrude died in childbirth. Hot on the heels of the horrors of Gigli, people would trash this movie just because it was the next film the couple tried to collaborate on. But the scenes we do have of Affleck and Lopez in Jersey Girl are a lot more connected with their chemistry.

And look, I am a Jersey Girl apologist. I remember loving it when I saw it, and I did see Gigli at the time. I just don’t remember a lick of it without having to read about it. Jersey Girl? That’s one I still love to this day.

All this to say that I am both excited and worried that This Is Me… Now could fall into one of two categories: It could be the new Gigli or this could be Lopez’s Jersey Girl. Either way, what a journey we’re going to go on.

(featured image: Sony Pictures Releasing)