The Second Act – Review

The Second Act film review; romance comedy, Jennifer Lopez

Director: Peter Segal

Runtime: 104 minutes

At some point in the last few years, Jennifer Lopez must have decided that we all forgot she was from the Bronx (we did not), and as such, layered on her iconic thick New Yawker accent and brought us The Second Act (2018)—a profoundly confused comedy with a scattered plot, cardboard characters and very few laughs.

The film opens with Maya (Lopez), the assistant manager of a Walmart-type superstore, finding herself frustrated with her career due to her lack of higher education. After a resume mishap that sees Maya’s credentials inflated to impressive proportions, a private firm hires her as a consultant. A determined Maya dives head-first into her work to prove once and for all that she is strong, smart and capable.

With the set up, I think any audience member could be forgiven for believing they knew what kind of movie they were watching. Instead, the film switches up on us about halfway through, deciding that Maya’s deception of the company is really just the B-plot. Avoiding spoilers, I’ll just describe this new A-plot as predictable, clichéd, and overly emotional. Furthermore, the film desperately tries to modernise itself with feminist themes. The female characters have the most screen time and it’s great that a film in a genre that has been notoriously unkind to woman is trying to undo the damage. However, The Second Act falls short with mostly two-dimensional women and, even worse, a really off-colour trans joke about one-third into the film.

Aside from all of this, the film was just not interesting. Milo Ventimiglia (as Maya’s boyfriend Trey) was so vastly underused and his onscreen chemistry with Lopez was so non-existent that whenever he appeared in the film I had to remind myself who he was. Freddie Stroma, playing the office douchebag and antagonist Ron, was another good actor lost to a poorly written character and his general lack of involvement at the climax was incredibly underwhelming. The script often felt weak, characters lacked any motivation and there were very little consequences for Maya’s actions, so I honestly didn’t care either way if she succeeded.

Performances were generally a mixed bag. Lopez was bland, as was Vanessa Hudgens as Zoe. Leah Remini as Maya’s best friend Joan was a lovely relief and most of the (few) jokes that actually landed came from her. Alan Aisenberg and Charlyne Yi were equally funny and engaging but it is unfortunate that they didn’t really do much more for the film with their limited screen time.

The camera work was often pretty good, but it was undermined by the harsh studio lighting that seemed to be required for every scene. Equally, production design all felt very set-like and there was some use of green screen that seemed kind of rushed and well… not good.

The Second Act is a meandering film. There are no clear emotional motivations, real stakes or many interesting characters. There are definitely some laughs, just don’t expect them to come very regularly or from the protagonist. After a year of some great female-led comedies and romances, it’s honestly such a shame that this film missed the mark and fell short of having any real impact.

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