FILM REVIEW: Jennifer Lopez in the Back Up Plan

May 7 2010 by Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo

ABSENCE should make the heart grow fonder. But has anyone missed Jennifer Lopez on the big screen during her four-year hiatus to raise her twins ?

The slow-burning sexy 1998 thriller Out Of Sight with Hollywood heart-throb George Clooney remains her best work, sandwiched between the camp B-movie Anaconda and numerous forgettable romantic comedies such as Maid In Manhattan and The Wedding Planner.

Lopez makes her return in front of the camera in Alan Poul’s whimsical chick flick, which asserts that love happens when you least expect it.

In the case of The Back-Up Plan, love blossoms within minutes of Lopez’s successful career girl undertaking her first round of IVF to achieve her dream of a papoose to match her designer-label handbag.

In any other relationship comedy, finding Mr Right would be a moment of joyful celebration but here, the feisty heroine must deliberate whether to tell her beau that the fluttering in her stomach every time she sees him isn’t just butterflies.

Corporate high flier Zoe (Lopez) gave up her stressful job and cashed in her stock options to buy a downtown pet store.

A chance encounter with Stan (Alex O’Loughlin), who runs a dairy stall at a New York farmer’s market, puts a healthy glow in Zoe’s cheeks and she is forced to confess everything to her employees, Clive (Christian Olsen) and Daphne (Noureen DeWulf), who take an active interest in her normally non-existent love life.

The fledgling romance goes from strength-to-strength and eventually, Zoe is forced to tell Stan that in nine months he will be playing surrogate father to a pair of ginger-haired mewling tots.