1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Production
    Filming  Music 

4. Release

5. Reception
    Box office  Critical response 

6. References

7. External links

• Jennifer Lopez
• Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas
• Justin Zackham
• Benny Medina

• Justin Zackham
• Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas

• Jennifer Lopez
• Leah Remini
• Vanessa Hudgens
• Treat Williams
• Milo Ventimiglia

Second Act is a 2018 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Segal and written by Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Justin Zackham. It stars Jennifer Lopez, Vanessa Hudgens, Leah Remini, Annaleigh Ashford, Dan Bucatinsky, Freddie Stroma, Milo Ventimiglia, Treat Williams and Larry Miller, and follows a woman in her 40s who pursues a second chance at a corporate career, after a friend creates her a fake resume and credentials. The film was released in the United States on December 21, 2018. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed over $72 million worldwide.

Plot

Maya Vargas (Jennifer Lopez) is the assistant manager of the Value Shop store she has worked at for the past 15 years. During that time she dramatically improved sales, customer relations, and general store culture through her intuitive and innovative methods. She awaits a store visit by an executive of her company, Mr. Weiskopf, anxiously hoping to be promoted to manager. Her boyfriend Trey (Milo Ventimiglia), co-workers, and several regular customers all assure Maya she’s guaranteed the promotion, but instead she’s passed up in favor of Arthur (Dan Bucatinsky), a non-local company employee with an MBA from Duke. Mr. Weiskopf explains that while he values Maya’s dedication and success, she only has a GED and no college degree, which makes her ineligible for the promotion by company policy. Maya is bitterly disappointed but reluctantly agrees to stay on as Arthur's second-in-command at the store.

Later that day, at her best friend/co-worker Joan’s (Leah Remini) house, her friends and Trey throw Maya a surprise 40th birthday party. Joan's tech-savvy son, Dilly, overhears Maya's frustration about being overlooked due to her educational shortcomings. Maya soon unexpectedly receives a call from a major retailer, Franklin & Clarke (F&C), for a job interview. Surprised that CEO Anderson Clarke personally wants to meet her, Maya nonetheless manages to impress Anderson. Unsure why she would be regarded so highly, it is then revealed that Dilly gave her background a dramatic makeover over social media, digitally fabricating for her an enhanced background with a Harvard education, high-ranking past corporate jobs, and an exaggerated upper-class life. Anderson’s daughter, Zoe (Vanessa Hudgens), who works under her father, displays a dislike and professional jealousy towards Maya, but Anderson is still impressed with Maya and offers her an executive consulting position at the company. Maya is reluctant to accept the offer since her so-called background and credentials are all lies. This changes when she becomes fed-up with Arthur’s obnoxious and clueless mismanagement of the Value Shop; she dramatically quits the store and accepts the offer to work at F&C.

Meanwhile, Maya's personal life begins to suffer. Trey has been a wonderful, loving boyfriend in the several years they’ve been together, but is deeply hurt to realize that Maya has no desire to have a family with him. Feeling that she has only allowed him to see the person she wants him to see and not who she really is, he breaks up with her.

On Maya's first day at F&C, she is given Hildy (Annaleigh Ashford) and Ariana (Charlyne Yi) as her assistants. At a company meeting that morning, she is introduced to the rest of the company and asked to share with them her thoughts on how to improve sales. Maya had earlier commented that their skincare product wasn’t selling well due to the fact it wasn't truly organic (although the label claimed it was), and that customers were put off by the perceived deception. Zoe is offended at the comment and challenges Maya to make something new, while Zoe attempts to modify a pre-existing line to be more organic. Anderson agrees to the competition and gives them three months to present their results. Maya assembles her underwhelming team against Zoe's superior group.

Amidst their company rivalry, things dramatically change for Maya and Zoe when they discover they're mother and daughter: At sixteen, Maya gave birth to a baby girl, Sarah. Maya couldn't afford to take care of the baby and decided to give her up for adoption (a decision that made her question her credibility as a parent with Trey). Anderson would later adopt Sarah and renamed her Zoe Franklin. Zoe wanted to search for her mother but gave up when there weren't enough clues to go on. Anderson kept the search and eventually found Maya (due to Dilly enhancing her social media presence). Anderson decided to hire Maya to see how Zoe would react around her, setting the stage for an unlikely family reunion. Although Maya is happy to be reunited with Zoe and establish a relationship, she remains fearful that her falsified life will come out and spoil Zoe's perceptions of her.

Over the next three months, Maya and Zoe bond as mother and daughter and become more friendly rivals in developing their new products. However, a sleazy development executive, Ron Epson (Freddie Stroma), has suspicions about Maya and investigates into her past.

Maya and her team struggle to develop her product, but none of their attempts are feasible for consumer use. At a company gala, Ron makes it clear he's onto Maya, and her former boss, Mr. Weiskopf, recognize her. While trying to avoid Weiskopf and outsmart Ron, Maya finds inspiration for her product: her late grandfather was a World War II soldier that found a surviving Silver Ginkgo tree at Hiroshima. He collected some cuttings and grew one into a bonsai tree for his wife, which was then passed down to Maya. Maya realizes that tree is naturally radiation-resistant and would be the ideal ingredient in their new organic beauty cream.

At the project deadline, Zoe modifies two of their brands to be more organic, while Maya presents an All-In-One ginkgo cream in a lavish outdoor presentation. The Board votes overwhelmingly for Maya's product and wants her to present it to the industry as F&C's exciting new product. Ron, meanwhile, finally gets proof that Maya is a fake.

At the public board meeting, Maya admits the truth about herself before Ron can expose her, but also champions that her ginkgo cream is not a lie. She selflessly gives her hardworking team credit for the product and asks them to finish the presentation as she quietly resigns from F&C. Zoe confronts Maya, hurt and angry by the deception. Although Maya had no intention of leaving Zoe, Zoe leaves her to resume studying art and photography abroad; Maya is crestfallen.

One year passes, with many changes. Anderson forgives Maya and maintains friendly relations with her. Zoe goes to London to complete her art studies, while Maya and her girlfriends team up to create a new online shopping company, MondayMomz.com. Taking all her experience from Value Shop, Maya creates an enhanced online shopping system (with the help of Dilly) that becomes successful. Weiskopf sees Maya's true value and becomes a co-investor in her business project. Trey returns to Maya's life, with Maya promising to be more honest about herself, and open to starting a family with him.

Maya actively writes to Zoe about her feelings and experiences during their time apart, and Zoe decides to forgive her. The film ends with Maya and Zoe deciding to start over as mother and daughter once again.

Cast

• Jennifer Lopez as Maya Vargas
• Vanessa Hudgens as Zoe Franklin/Sarah Vargas
• Leah Remini as Joan
• Annaleigh Ashford as Hildy
• Dan Bucatinsky as Arthur
• Freddie Stroma as Ron Epson
• Milo Ventimiglia as Trey
• Treat Williams as Anderson Clarke
• Larry Miller as Weiskopf
• Charlyne Yi as Ariana Ng
• Dave Foley as Felix Herman
• Alan Aisenberg as Chase
• Dierdre Friel as Ant
• John James Cronin as Otto

Production

In June 2017, Jennifer Lopez signed on to star.^[2] In October 2017, Leah Remini, Annaleigh Ashford, Vanessa Hudgens, Dan Bucatinsky and Freddie Stroma joined the cast of the film.^[3][4][5][6] In November 2017, Milo Ventimiglia, Treat Williams, Larry Miller, Dave Foley, Charlyne Yi and Alan Aisenberg were added as well.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

Filming

Music

On September 21, 2018, Sia was announced as the composer for the original song "Limitless" for the film's soundtrack, produced by Jesse Shatkin and performed by Lopez. On October 9, 2018, Lopez performed the song at the American Music Awards.^[15]

Release

The studio spent $19–30 million on promotion and advertisements for the film.^[19]

Reception

Box office

In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Aquaman, Welcome to Marwen and Bumblebee, and was projected to gross $9–13 million from 2,607 theaters over its five-day opening weekend.^[18][19] The film made $2.5 million on its first day, including $515,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $6.5 million for the weekend, finishing seventh at the box office. It then grossed $1 million on Monday and $3 million on Christmas Day, for a five-day total gross of $10.6 million.^[20] In its second weekend, the film increased by 11%, grossing $7.2 million.^[21]

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 44% based on 96 reviews, with an average rating of 4.98/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Second Act proves Jennifer Lopez remains as magnetic as ever on the big screen; unfortunately, the movie's muddled story isn't always worthy of her gifts."^[22] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[23] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.^[20]

Several reviews highlighted the similarities between Second Act and the 1988 drama Working Girl. Critic Nell Minow wrote that Second Act was an anti-educational inversion of Working Girl. "Unlike Tess in “Working Girl,” a much better film that this one tries to borrow from, Maya has not actually done the work to get the credential or done the research to prove that she can add value. The film’s point of view is uncomfortably anti-educated people, if not anti-education entirely. While two young characters are urged to get college degrees, the movie portrays “street smarts” and instinct as more authentic and more valuable than the kind of dumb team-building exercises a person with an MBA would think worthwhile. School does have value; a teacher grading this script would have sent it back with corrections and insisted on another draft".

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|2126357}}

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