Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Greatest Love Story Never Told’ on Prime Video, The Documentary Portion Of Jennifer Lopez’s Three Headed, Heart-Shaped Media Blitz

The Greatest Love Story Never Told (Prime Video) is a documentary film designed to accompany This Is Me…Now, the sorta film/sorta extended music video thing that itself is a companion piece to J-Lo’s album of the same name, her ninth. “I didn’t have to do this,” Lopez tells husband Ben Affleck in Greatest Love Story. Her professional life did not demand this three-pronged confessional beast. She didn’t even have to make the original album on which all the visual media is based. “It’s not like anybody was clamoring for the next J-Lo record.” But Lopez says it felt worthy to share her journey toward loving herself through 20 years and four marriages, worthy enough that she fronted millions of her own cash to finance the effort. Affleck appears in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, as do members of Lopez’s inner circle, This Is Me…Now director Dave Meyers, and celebrity pals like Jane Fonda, Fat Joe, and Post Malone. And it takes 40 whole minutes before anybody makes a Gigli reference. 

THE GREATEST LOVE STORY NEVER TOLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: The title of Greatest Love Story Never Told refers to Jennifer Lopez’s romance with Ben Affleck, which began in 2001, famously faltered, and maybe even more famously was rekindled in 2021, which led to their marriage in Las Vegas in 2022. But Affleck, who handles some of the on-camera interview portions of the doc in addition to occasionally appearing in it, admits his surprise that their relationship was at the project’s core. Footage shows Lopez sharing with her new album’s writing and production partners a book, crafted by Affleck, which compiles their correspondence over the years. Love letters, devotions, personal emails…”They were like, ‘Yeah, we call you Pen Affleck.’” Isn’t making all of that stuff public basically the opposite of a love story never told? But Affleck says he adjusted because this is the art Lopez wanted to make.     

Greatest Love Story is really a documentary that most accompanies This Is Me…Now, the miniature movie that isn’t a music video but still kind of is. The music from the record that spawned all of this is something that happened before, and will happen after – each sequence in This Is Me revolves thematically around the album’s tracklist. The in-between is where we are for the duration of this doc, with its most revealing moments capturing Lopez out of the limelight, out of hair and makeup, and more than once even bursting into tears.

Because hey, as J-Lo’s longtime manager Benny Medina says, there was major pushback on all of the visual stuff. With casting and rehearsals set and a deal in place, the money people pulled the plug. Music movies don’t sell, they said. Assistants rattle off A-list names who declined to participate in Lopez’s passion project. And the thrust of the doc becomes the star’s decision to self-finance and manage it personally, in order that The Greatest Story Never Told actually gets told. 

The record and the movie in miniature, it’s all based on her life, much of it surrounding her upbringing as a middle kid in the Bronx. (You can get lost, Lopez says of the middle, as you seek value and self-worth.) She’s writing lyrics. Designing choreo. Exploring musical themes. But necessity demands she also become a wrangler and arbiter of every tiny little production snafu. Budget, budget, budget – always the budget. But dilemmas over umbrella choice, too, and floor thickness, and conveyor belt mechanics, even mud quality. Crunchier mud? Wetter mud? WHAT DOES JEN WANT? It turns out she wants more splatter. You know, the rizz of mud.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Jennifer Lopez twice references Prince in The Greatest Love Story Never Told, as an inspiration on her creative spirit and the format of This Is Me…Now, which Lopez likens to Purple Rain in the way an album’s song can be brought to life in a different way. And though Affleck describes his initial reluctance to embrace the social media component of Lopez’s life as a megastar, pretty much every time the couple appears in Greatest Love Story, it feels like the foundational elements of the Kardashians-like reality show they have yet to make. Or did they just make it? 

Performance Worth Watching: Jenifer Lewis is a quote machine on the shoot day for her role as a member of the Zodiacal Council in This Is Me…Now. But the campiness she approaches it with also gets at the feel of the resulting sequence. Lewis has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she reminds the gathered production assistants. Oh, this is a J-Lo documentary? Well, you can call this Jenifer “J-Lew.” And about the whole concept of star signs? “I’m playing Gemini,” Lewis says. The twins Castor and Pollux and all that. “You know, that split bitch. I’m not into the zodiac signs, so I don’t know what the fuck they do.” 

Memorable Dialogue: Jennifer Lopez was created back then, she says of her first few albums, On the 6, J.Lo, and especially 2002’s This Is Me…Then, for which This Me…Now acts as a mirror. On those albums, Lopez says she became a larger-than-life character. But the new material? “This is about truth. About facing the truth of who you really are, and embracing that.”  

Sex and Skin: Nothing that’s really out there. In a way, what Greatest Love Story reveals most is everyday Jennifer Lopez, in sweats and no makeup, making phone calls at her kitchen island, or in lighter moments with Affleck where they embody the meme-y energy of Victoria and David Beckham going viral for their Rolls-Royce conversation.

Our Take: “What he saw in me, what he made me believe about myself, only comes with love. Because nobody else has made me see that.” This tearful admission from Jennifer Lopez in The Greatest Love Story Never Told certainly powers what drove her to make this doc. And that admission is unlike anything in This Is Me…Now, which it accompanies, and that the star and her people take great pains to say does not apply proper nouns on any of her past relationships. (Lopez even stresses this to Affleck as they work on the script at home. “This isn’t about me and you! Take that out! It’s not part of the script!”) So is it weird to make a multi-sequence extended music video with cinematic elements that nevertheless does not directly acknowledge its inspiration? In the end, maybe that’s why she had to make both of these things. It’s interesting to watch the production of This Is Me come together in Greatest Love Story. Stuff like the storyboards for the heart petal factory, or the effort that went into designing choreo based on the drastic push and pull of two people in a relationship. But ultimately, even though it features a giant metal heart as its central metaphor, This is Me…Now is a whole lot of lavish spectacle and not a lot of genuine heart. For that, you need to consult this doc, which is way more effective at communicating the Lopez-Affleck love story.        

Our Call: For anyone wild about J-Lo, or Bennifer, or Just Jen and Ben, The Greatest Love Story Never Told is a STREAM IT. But this doc is really most effective as a companion piece to This Is Me…Now, Jennifer Lopez’s glittery meta movie/video experiment that puts her new music into motion. 

Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.