This movie is actually pretty good, and quite smart.
It’s not perfect (far from so) as it is surely a film with faults (the score has moments of insane corniness and I’m not a true supporter of the development of Justin Bartha’s character) – but overall it’s one of the most daring mainstream summer American comedies I can think of from the 2000s.
The big issue I have with the response to the film, however, is that many have been fooled into believing what the studios advertised. That the film was a supposed romantic comedy with the tabloid-crazed “Bennifer” in the lead roles – making many expecting a romantic film disappointed by the lack of kinetic chemistry between both Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez’s characters. This film isn’t a romance. It’s about sexuality and it’s about gender roles and it develops all of these elements through its cheeky and humorous dialogue instead of a true three-act narrative. In the end, it becomes understandable why the film is so universally hated by the mainstream moviegoers and critics. They weren’t expecting a 2-hour talkative movie about sex. Can you imagine the same people loving Hollywood “rom-coms” like “Just Like Heaven” or “Sweet Home Alabama” appreciating a film that takes almost entirely in one apartment as a man tries desperately to have sex with a lesbian?
It could also be that queer element that turned many off, too. Or maybe, they skimmed over it (which is highly possible seeing as nearly none of the reviews from critics seemed to have picked up on that aspect of Affleck’s character) and couldn’t stand watching a man being so emasculated. But director Martin Brest is very sensitive to that development.
Most have slammed Affleck’s over-the-top performance in the film – but fail to see the reason for such theatrical behavior in comparison to Lopez’s understated turn. Did people not pay attention to the film’s first twenty or so minutes? Critical response once again seem to get things a bit twisted by calling both Affleck and Lopez’s characters gangsters. Affleck isn’t really a gangster – but a wannabe. People laugh at the way he dressed and projects some kind of TV-esque gangster archetype, his over-the-top swagger at trying to be cool. In the opening scene alone, a character comments on how he's trying too hard.
It’s this masculine approach that he uses to help relieve and hide himself from his truly "feminine" emotions. Many have commented that Lopez is too “quiet” as a gangster. But what I don’t get is how anyone figured she was a gangster at all. Her character is a friend to some tough gangsters (it's said more than twice in the movie, she's not a gangster), but she’s not a cynical and violent thug herself. She’s just a very open and understanding individual who can still remain calm with her own personality while accepting the best from people who are projecting their personalities through such a violent world. (Look at the way she smiles and comforts Affleck’s character after he is constantly frantic. Or look at the way she tries to make way of a situation when her ex-girlfriend shows up at the apartment to cause a scene.) For further proof that the two are not in any way supposed to be portrayed as professional gangsters – look at the scene where the Al Pacino character blows a guy’s brains out (the only violent moment in the entire film). Both Affleck and Lopez react in utter shock and both become incredibly frightened. It's because it's the first action of real violence they've seen in this world they're working in, and it shocks them into running away. They realize it's not all fun and games - and gender roles, or living up to someone. They're not cut out for being gangsters at all. That's Brest's point in the screenplay.
But I digress, I’m just getting into picking apart “what the critics got wrong”. What I need to do is just share what makes the film, to me, one that works so well for what it is. A ballsy, more-intelligent-than-the-norm mainstream Hollywood gender/sex comedy.
Check out this scene: https://youtu.be/zEwV29feAj0.
It’s a playful little monologue that, on the surface or out of context with the film’s intentions, could rub off as supremely stupid. However, in terms of Lopez’s character – it thoroughly makes sense. Her picking apart the false, hyper-masculine behavior that Affleck always possesses – which ultimately leads to her sleeping with him – NOT because she has been changed from her sexuality – but because she sees it as a way to help him cope and open up to being more honest with himself and his sensitive traits.
Late in the film, while sitting in the car awaiting a message from a REAL gangster, Affleck sits and delivers a piece of dialogue about how he hates the world and how he’s always fantasized about some place “really clean and without all the bad stuff”. In this moment, in Affleck’s performance, he’s no longer “thug”… he’s vulnerable, raw, sensitive, and honest. When the fellow gangster pulls up next to them, he immediately shifts back into the gangster image with an overtly manly “Wassup?!” Why are people ripping on the performance being fake when the small subtle moments like this are showing that Affleck's character himself is putting on a show, and nobody is buying it?
There’s also a scene in the film where Affleck tries to argue with Lopez about how the penis is the most desirable thing when it comes to all things sexual. Lopez, of course, disagrees and argues for the vagina. It’s a playful, dirty, but believable battle of words – and it’s quite poetically written (and some critics who loathe the movie even feel this way) – and it really dives even more into what makes “Gigli” so special. It’s not dumb or immature about sex. Affleck’s character is (does he realize that arguing the beauty of the penis even further shows his true sexual fluidity deep within?), but the film and Lopez’s character are not.
Watch this video montage of dialogue in the film that is infamously considered “unintentionally funny” and “bad”…
https://youtu.be/7r9Eq0wqFR0
Many of these bits are meant to be funny (just check out Affleck’s reaction to Lopez’s “gobble gobble”, just as uncomfortable and weirded out by people claiming the line makes them uncomfortable or weirded out... or the over-machoism of Affleck in his line delivers... writer Brest is being cheeky with it for sure) and they’re not really bad either – but consistent with the film’s themes and developments of the leads. When Lopez comically utters “It’s turkey time” – it’s a play on a scene earlier in the film in which Affleck tried to argue how every relationship has a “bull and a cow”… to which Lopez responds to his principle as if he was a dumbass – because that philosophy IS incredibly dumb. Y’see… “Gigli”’s most smart when it’s aware of itself being dumb. Affleck’s character is simply a dumbass. She's reflecting his actions on him to emasculate him and that discomforts him.
But it’s beautiful how Lopez’s character takes on a maternal care for him and helps him break from his shell. It’s done humorously, but genuinely. “Life’s not always black-and-white”, a character says in the film. Labels aren’t necessarily important either – but there’s still always time for preference as long as one’s honest concerning it. Which is why it’s beautiful when Lopez tells Affleck “I bet you’d look good in mascara” all the more poignant – especially his smiling response to that.
“Gigli” is well-written, has a brain – and is truly – seriously – underrated and quite misunderstood. I just wish more looked at it for its true intentions and didn’t treat it like it wasn’t written and directed by an otherwise acclaimed director best known for his satirical comedies based on social issues. This film deserves better, even with its flaws.