Not since “Gigli” have Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez produced this degree of cringe.
And oh, my God, is it superb.
“This critically melted my coronary heart,” J.Lo wrote in a web based submit to followers this week. She couldn’t assist herself, she stated, from sharing “one thing very particular and private with you that usually I might solely share with my internal circle . . . [a] Valentine’s Day current from Ben.”
What follows is J.Lo’s music video for her track “On My Approach,” intercut — for causes clear solely to the director — with black and white footage of Affleck and Matt Damon taking pictures 1997’s “Good Will Searching.”
Damon could also be Affleck’s eternally Valentine. However that’s an apart.
We see numerous pictures of younger Ben smoking, or wrinkling his brow and smoking, or displaying off his dance strikes interspersed with clips from Bennifer’s nice inventive meta-commentary on romance amid tabloid fame, 2002’s “Jenny from the Block” video.
It’s a love letter . . . I suppose?
Neglect Woodward and Newman. Burton and Taylor? Amateurs.
No, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have staked their declare on The Biggest Hollywood Love Story of All Time in addition to outer-limits narcissism.
Take into account the chorus to “On My Approach”:
“And each heartbreak was only a yellow brick highway/Pointing me straight, simply taking me dwelling/I used to be by no means misplaced/I used to be simply passing by/I used to be on my approach to you.”
In different phrases, each different relationship these two had — together with lengthy marriages that produced a number of kids — have been mere pace bumps, distractions, nuisances, crosses to bear on their approach to reclaiming True Love.
Oh, my God. This breakup goes to be epic.
Ben Affleck is the undisputed efficiency artist of our time. His cycles of self-sabotage and last-minute profession resurrections, all for public consumption, are extra riveting and dramatic than any movie he’s ever completed.
The again tattoo, the rehab stints, the playing, the nanny, the “Discovering Your Roots” debacle, the Oscar bait leavened by bombs and Batfleck, the self-inflicted wounds, the cruelty — these are however a couple of that come to thoughts.
Right here he was on Howard Stern in December, shading his long-suffering ex-wife, Jennifer Garner, whereas campaigning for an Oscar nomination.
“I in all probability nonetheless would’ve been consuming” had they stayed married, he stated. “A part of why I began consuming was as a result of I used to be trapped. I used to be like, ‘I can’t depart due to my youngsters, however I’m not completely happy. What do I do?’ And what I did was drank a bottle of scotch and fell asleep on the sofa, which turned out to not be the answer.”
Apparently the answer is to play actuality present together with your previous flame. J.Lo wore a marriage gown to her “Marry Me” premiere, escorted by Affleck. She uploaded that personal Valentine’s video on her opening weekend. She sat for canopy tales with Rolling Stone and Folks, telling the latter that their rekindled love is “sacred” and “I wish to do all the things I can to guard that and hold it secure.”
This from a pair that loves to assert that media consideration initially broke them up — not Affleck’s dishonest with strippers in Canada weeks earlier than their wedding ceremony in 2003, an epic night time that ended again at a rental, his pal Christian Slater getting his again shaved by a topless dancer.
“Hold this simply between us,” Affleck reportedly informed stripper Tammy Morris.
As an alternative, Morris informed all to the Nationwide Enquirer.
And Lopez — gifted a Rolls Royce, a diamond ring and a lavish party only a week earlier than by Affleck — referred to as off the marriage.
Hey, the trail to real love isn’t all the time clean, proper? Each heartbreak was only a yellow brick highway.
Watch the video. Be a humanitarian — share it. And maintain its reminiscence shut once they challenge the inevitable joint assertion asserting, after a lot painful consideration, their resolution to half methods — requesting, in fact, “privateness at this tough time.”
