Telling lies is still a bad thing, right? I mean, I know the gaslighting is off-the-charts these days what with our country currently led by the biggest liar it has ever known, but even our President knows lying is bad. Otherwise, he wouldn’t constantly (and ironically) shout “FAKE NEWS” whenever genuine facts are revealed. Hence, it bugs me when a modern plot revolves around lies, lies, and JLies.
Stuck in a plot nobody researched, Maya (Jennifer Lopez) is up for promotion from grocery store manager to, I dunno, grocery store superintendent. Her fifteen years of running a profitable market are tossed in favor of a less qualified, but certainly pedigreed, middle-aged white guy. This doesn’t quite jive with modern business, but I’ll allow it; the glass ceiling is still a thing even if experience is far more important than a degree at this point in Maya’s career … and deserving people are still denied promotions all the time for less-than-impressive reasons.
Naturally, Maya is upset about missing the promotion, so her best friend’s teenage son (?!) takes it upon himself to remake her résumé and reinvent her social footprint, filling each with fabrications that would make a climate change denier blush. The Stanford-bound kid then has the temerity to suggest the FBI couldn’t touch his work. Oh? Does the FBI no longer have, I dunno, phones? Computers? People? It takes me about a minute to investigate if something has been photoshopped … and I’m pretty sure the FBI are better at this stuff than I am. Look, look, look: I understand it’s in vogue these days to score points off slamming institutions you know nothing about, but let’s not be silly. Please don’t go the projectionist route – just because the organization you ally with has lost every shred of integrity doesn’t mean all organizations have … I’m looking at you, the entirety of the Republican Party.
Is anybody else here disturbed by the teen going all in with unrequested help to his mother’s 49-year-old friend? Somewhere in the world “Stacy’s Mom” is playing, knowwhatI’msayin’? Oh, and he also starts applying to jobs for her. Isn’t that nice?
It gets better. Maya lands an expensive corner-office consulting job (one she never applied for) with an interview that lasts thirty seconds, no HR consultancy, and no reference checks. See, here’s the thing: I’ve applied to many jobs this year and that isn’t how it works … on any level. Geez, you’d think screenwriters would know how to be unemployed. Maya immediately quits her current job (also not how it works), and takes all the perks from new boss, Treat Williams. Oh, look, Maya also has a rival in Treat’s daughter, Zoe (Vanessa Hudgens), and instead of doing the job she was hired to do (i.e. working with Zoe), Maya now has to create her own multi-million dollar product line from scratch using the dregs of the office. This is not how business works. All the while, it’s patently obvious that Maya doesn’t know what she’s doing, has lied on her résumé, and hasn’t even done the most basic of research on herself to see what she’s supposed to be proficient at. This is funny to a sadist, I suppose. The only problem is how to get sadists to attend a JLo film; her crowd is more masochists, no?
I haven’t even gotten to the plot points that really irked me. Suffice to say, Second Act wasn’t made for this reality. JLo, however, is somebody definitely meant for this reality. Her problem is casting. Give it up for the woman; she’s 49 and still turning heads, but the cost is that she is 49 when Hollywood is far more comfortable not catering specifically to the cougar crowd, dig? Hence, the lead roles JLo takes are always in crappy afterthought scripts. “Oh, you can get work all right, but it’s gonna involve Gerard Butler, Dermot Mulroney, and a chimp-at-large.” Honestly, I’d be much happier with JLo going more of a Julia Roberts route, taking smaller roles in bigger films or choosing scripts that won’t focus on comic vulnerability or her ass. Second Act doesn’t deserve a second chance.
♪Gotta make a film with a script that’s right for me
Remove any plots that will save my dignity
Won’t you take me to
Cougar Town
Won’t you take me to
Cougar Town♫
Rated PG-13, 103 Minutes
Director: Peter Segal
Writer: Justin Zackham, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas
Genre: How life works in romcoms, I think
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Depressed middle-aged women
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: HR
♪ Parody Inspired by “Funkytown”
