The Bennifer Doc is completely unnecessary – but no one is more devoted to the press than JLo

There is a moment in Jennifer Lopez's latest documentary The greatest love story never tolddirected by Jason Bergh, where she understands why she's pursuing the multi-format release of her ninth album This is me…Now. “It's not like anyone was clamoring for JLo's next record,” she says with a knowing laugh in an interview scene. “There are some people around me who say, 'This is stupid.' He doesn't need to do that. Why is he doing that;”. And they are right. I don't do it need to do any of these… But I want to”.

That's the gist of the film, which follows the making of both her album and accompanying visual. Lopez's three-parter explores her rekindled relationship with Ben Affleck, who were together for a whirlwind, tabloid-loving relationship between 2002 and 2004 and then rekindled their romance in early 2021 before finally tying the knot in 2022. Big part of the music is inspired by a series of letters and e-mails they exchanged during their first performance. Affleck had not only saved them, but had compiled them into a book that he gave her as a gift when they got back together.

“I really found the beauty and the poetry and the irony in the fact that it's the greatest love story never told,” Affleck tells the film's camera. The documentary takes its name from the book he made about Lopez. “If you make a record about it, it sounds like you're saying it.”

Affleck plays the reluctantly supportive husband well. He breathes a sigh of relief when filming of her musical ends, thrilled that the story is more about his wife learning to love herself than loving each other. But for every whine, there's a moment of his own willing negotiation of his privacy. He wouldn't have made it any other way.

As the documentary progresses, Lopez finds increasingly grandiose ways to say it. She spends much of her own money to finance the film, which satirizes her four marriages and her constant pursuit of romantic love. Lopez struggles to assemble a cast, specifically to play an astrology-themed Greek chorus that comments from above on Lopez's trials and tribulations as our most notable hopeless romantic. In her eyes, the fellow A-listers who turn her down are “afraid” to take such a big risk. Her Monster-Father-in-law Her co-star Jane Fonda warns Lopez against letting her relationship get overexposed again. Jenifer Lewis shows up on set and looks playfully confused by what the hell she's filming. Lopez's team grows increasingly strict as they remind her that they are spending too much money on what is ultimately a passion project.

Like the movie musical, the documentary is a silly, unknown, over-the-top exercise that only a celebrity like Lopez could pull off. Affleck is an obnoxious but supportive figure, keeping her in check when it looks like he's going to claim she was younger than she actually was when they first met, and at points where he personally feels overexposed. He still defends her and her creative pursuits fervently, noting his willingness to negotiate how public their romance could be on social media and thoughtfully explaining Tinkerbell Syndrome and her hunger for an audience. She compares her addiction to being an alcoholic entertainer: In the same way that an alcoholic can't get enough booze, Lopez can't get enough fans. Like the extended premise of the music video, Lopez's search for love in all forms is born out of not feeling loved enough as a child. She learns this in a dream recounted by the fictional JLo to her therapist Fat Joe, where she meets the child version of herself who begs the older JLo to love her more.

But for how utterly unnecessary it all seems, it's hard to look away. Bennifer is still the ultimate celebrity couple who have given the world the type of whirlwind, decades-long love story that not even the best romance novelists could emulate. And what's so exciting about Lopez is that she's the one committed to helping us fuel knowledge as much as possible. Whether it's having Affleck rub sunscreen on her butt in the 'Jenny From the Block' video, posting a racy Instagram of their reunion, or showing off his private love letters in a documentary, no one has been more dedicated to covering Bennifer by JLo herself. She is the greatest reporter of their love.

In an era of highly curated privacy, where most of our biggest stars have more often than not drawn an opaque curtain over their private lives, it's refreshing to see when celebrities lean into celebrity of all such as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's very public courtship. But few famous couples match the self-mythologizing Bennifer has started, and as Jane Fonda says in the documentary, we're all invested.