A big box store worker reinvents her life and her life-story and shows Madison Avenue what street smarts can do.
Jennifer Lopez, while playing the typical movie role which we’ve become accustomed to, is getting better at convincing us she is thoroughly capable of handling multi-dimensional roles in which she achieves her acting goals against all odds. While we may never stray too far from our idealistic “Jenny From the Block,” we all should agree that in her role as Maya, she definitely stretches our imagination and intrigues us to explore the endless possibilities of her range as an actor.
In this film of second chances, Maya (Jennifer Lopez) navigates through several relationships while trying to prove herself and spends a majority of her life making up for the regrettable decisions she has made along the way. In what she feels is her meager existence as an Assistant Manager at a retail store, she doesn’t realize the magnitude of her support group which has rallied around her during the difficult times where she has had to make decisions to satisfy everyone except herself. When she decides to jump ship to challenge herself more and create a better life, she falls victim to creating a persona in which she has to continue to lie in order to make herself look appealing to others and feel worthy. When she ends up working for a boss at Franklin & Clarke who raised her daughter Zoe (Vanessa Hudgens), whom she had given up for adoption, it becomes an Achilles heel as she tries to move up the corporate ladder and reacquaint herself with her daughter in an attempt to salvage the relationship and put an end to the feeling of emptiness she has long carried with her. To complicate matters even worse, she sabotages her personal relationship with her boyfriend Trey (Milo Ventimiglia), a man who loves her, by pushing him away and not being honest about her background. Things seem to finally start falling into place when Jennifer invents a skin care regimen that puts her in line for the ultimate promotion and an opportunity to finally make amends with her daughter and her boyfriend after several missed opportunities. At the height of her popularity within her new career, the lie she has been living comes back to haunt her and threatens to put her out of commission for good.
The film is filled with several teachable moments which focus on a myriad of relationships in which Jennifer must come to terms with her own identity before she is able to have anything worth holding on to in life. Director Peter Segal does an excellent job of balancing the seriousness with humor, as well as providing an amazing story of love, loss, and redemption through our relentless “JLo,” who seems to shine through every role in which she flawlessly takes command of the screen, both mentally and physically without ever skipping a beat.
Now playing in theaters
