Jennifer Lopez: Halftime
NETFLIXIntimacy and imitability appear to have been confused in this latest Netflix documentary. Imitation is the game, trying to flog the dead horse of personalised biopic features that strike a celebrity at what would appear to be an opportune moment. Appearances are all the difference for Halftime, a feature with as much sustenance as an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and as much a focus on personifying a celebrity image as that Kardashian-led product. Focusing primarily on the Super Bowl performance Jennifer Lopez offered viewers a few years ago, Halftime inevitably, almost with a mandatory state, ends up documenting the life and career of Lopez. Her influences, her desires, her life in the shadow of other, better pop stars.
It is an awkwardly dull rush. Somehow taking mild inspiration from Errol Morris’ The Fog of War, this Netflix documentary from director Amanda Micheli focuses on the subject by asking questions directly to them. There is no static camera swirling around trying to hound the star with questions, but a formal chit-chat that saps the life out of a documentary and its pacing if done poorly. The Fog of War does not have this problem. Halftime does. The leading reason for that is just how dull a story it is. A love of Lopez or not, it is hard to find much love or hate for someone that has lived the life of cliché influences, rocky relationships that became tabloid fodder and ghoulish fans clamouring for that second-long sighting of a star they’ll never know.
Documentaries like Halftime are fuelling that fire somewhat. Done correctly and there can be an intimate understanding of who the singer is and the struggles they powered through to get to where they were. Gaga: Five Foot Two did that tremendously well. Halftime is more focused on highlighting Lopez in as dull a light as possible. That may be because she is not that interesting a subject. Her struggles are putting together a show for an overbearing sports event and cutting back to add snippets of detail to her background and her life told with old footage of the star and cutaways to other big shots Ben Affleck and Laura Dern. Also included is Shakira. It is nice to see a better pop star mixed into Halftime at least. Will audiences learn anything from these inclusions and background moments of intimacy? Probably not, no. Because what is there to really no other than Lopez is a woman who, like everyone, has relatively mediocre and uninteresting highs and lows?
Where intimacy may be the game Lopez plays, it is not the effect at all. A non-documentary that appears to have been compiled of clips that highlight a faux narrative of birthdays, family and friendship. For those diehard Lopez who, for some reason or another, find inspiration in the very basic attitudes and comments made throughout, then this will work wonders. But Halftime is such a poorly shot and awfully developed documentary, sincerely looking as poor as it can be at all times. Glazed shots, inevitably cliché low-down camera angles paired with music and record scratches that tell an audience how to feel, rather than making them feel it with emotive scenes. All of it feels staged, dull and awkward, especially when Micheli’s direction wants to build Lopez up as an inspiration. It can’t do that when the camera, and the message, are a blur.