‘Office Romance’ Movie Review: Jennifer Lopez Makes Love Look Easy In Formulaic But Appealingly Racy Rom-Com
Photo from Netflix
From Jeremy Kibler
Jennifer Lopez is just a girl who loves love, and she’s back to her genre of choice in Office Romance, a mildly racy, passably delightful workplace romantic comedy. Sometimes, pretty people falling in love is just enough as a Netflix-made diversion goes, as long as the writing is a bit sharper than most. Luckily, that’s the case because, while Office Romance is inherently formulaic (right down to a public declaration of I-love-you), there’s a welcome naughty streak that’s more appealingly brash than smarmy.
Lopez plays Jackie Cruz, the CEO of a commercial airline company based in New Jersey. As she’s currently fending off lawsuits from rival companies, she meets Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein), the new attorney in her company’s law department who has to step in for a deposition (Jackie’s usual legal representation, played by Bradley Whitford, chokes on a burrito). With a strict policy against interoffice affairs, Jackie and Daniel may or may not give romance a go. Hint: the movie is called Office Romance.
Director Ol Parker made 2022’s Ticket to Paradise, a Bali-set romantic comedy that mostly worked because of George Clooney and Julia Roberts’s star wattage. Similarly, Office Romance sticks to a formula we know, but this will-they-or-won’t-they formula is served with the glossiness of beautiful people who just happen to be played by beautiful people. The conflict is solid enough, even if the destination is clear as day; the biggest surprise of all might be a startlingly graphic crowning birth shot that rivals the one in Knocked Up.
We already know Jennifer Lopez is enormously charismatic and unstoppably gorgeous, and she continues to be both of those things here as Jackie Cruz. Those who haven’t watched popular Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso will be new to Brett Goldstein, who co-starred in and wrote that show and co-wrote this script with Joe Kelly. In one of his first film leads, Goldstein is charming in a stiff-postured, British sort of way with a perfectly sculpted chin strap. He and Lopez don’t exactly burn down the screen—one exception: their slow dance and kiss to a tropical cover of Mazzy Star’s “Fade into You” is pretty romantic—but they’re both photogenic and have enough chemistry with each other to imagine them as a compatible couple.
As characters, Jackie and Daniel are interesting-enough. On the surface, she looks like a nepo baby, but Jackie has gotten where she is through her own work ethic. Daniel is buttoned-up and knows where to draw the line between friends and colleagues, but even with Jackie, he keeps his private life private. As a routine, Daniel makes frequent visits to see his sister (an endearingly salty Jodie Whittaker) who’s in jail for something pretty serious, though it’s played for gallows humor in a way that works.
Meanwhile, the supporting cast (full of comedically inclined faces, like Tony Hale and Amy Sedaris) is a deep bench of quirky oddballs. In the obligatory Judy Greer supporting role, Betty Gilpin is the comedy MVP here as Sydney, Jackie’s very pregnant and very protective assistant Sydney whose work ethic trumps being ready to pop. She gets to go very over the top and act unhinged, but Gilpin is hysterically funny with an expressive face, particularly as Sydney gets closer to her water breaking; even her brief impersonation of Daniel is priceless.
With two such attractive people, Office Romance does feel a little too chaste, despite the occasional sex joke, but it’s comforting to watch these two crazy kids find romance in the office.
Rating: 3/5
Office Romance is currently streaming on Netflix.
