“Do you ever look at your life and wonder how you got there?” “If you made different choices, would you be happy” these are some of the questions raised by Jennifer Lopez’ character at the beginning of the trailer for Second Act, a film about a big box store worker who reinvents her life and her life-story and shows Madison Avenue what street smarts can do.
Lopez portrays Maya, a big box store worker who gets passed over for a promotion and decides to change her life. Helped by her friends, who give her a new identity, as Maria de la Vargas, and create an impressive social history for her, including photos with President Barack Obama, a business degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a resume showing fluency in Mandarin, she manages to get a new job at a Manhattan office.
Directed by Peter Segal, the film also stars Milo Ventimiglia as Maya’s husband, Leah Remini as Maya’s good friend, Vanessa Hudgens as her co-worker, and Treat Williams.
“I just wish we lived in a world where street smarts equal book smarts,” Jennifer Lopez tells Leah’s character, mentioning the “educated people in their fancy houses, who name their kids after fruit and climb Kilimanjaro.” Pretending she is someone else also and knowing things she doesn’t know, like Mandarin, comes with challenges, too, such as having a dinner with a Chinese manager, to whom she tells, “helped by a friend”, about a co-worker considered arrogant by the Chinese, that “His anal glands need milking”.
The songs used in the trailer are the 1992 single “Dreams” by Irish rock band The Cranberries, appearing on their debut studio album, “Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?” and the 1988 single “Push It” by the American hip-hop/rap trio Salt-N-Pepa, from their debut album, “Hot, Cool, & Vicious”.
Second Act is scheduled to be released in theaters this fall, on November 21.
