‘Office Romance’ review: Jennifer Lopez and Brett Goldstein in a Netflix Rom-Com that’s a lot of work and not enough play

The first time I saw someone online smugly trot out “I don’t dream of working” in response to a soothing insinuation about dream jobs, my eyes reflexively rolled to the back of my head. Nobody dreams exhaustion partI remember thinking. It’s meant to be a question about your interests, priorities, and contributions as you see them in the world.

But when I watched Netflix Office romance“, in which two colleagues fawn over each other with phrases like: “For most people, work is something you have to put up with to get to the weekend. But for me, that’s the best part,” I found that response boiling over in my head again, but this time in my own voice. I don’t dream of working. But these people really do, to the point that it gives what should be a thin Jennifer Lopez rom-com vehicle a somewhat depressing feel.

To be fair, a shared enthusiasm for 80-hour weeks isn’t the only thing that unites Jackie (Lopez), CEO of the hugely successful New Jersey-based commercial airline Air Cruises, and her in-house counsel, Daniel (Brett Goldstein, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Kelly). The other thing is that they have very, really, ridiculously good looks – so much so that it stands out very clearly after the first time they shake hands, much to his profound insult and her amused amusement.

This spontaneous, uncontrollable expression of lust seems to stem from the fact that neither of them have laid down in years, due to the whole “permanent job” thing. Daniel is very sensitive about even making friends in Office that he would rather give his co-worker (Mary Wiseman) a long lecture on how to greet Britons with “Okay?” It’s not an invitation to open up rather than kindly have a short conversation with her. As for Jackie Office romance It incoherently tries to have it both ways, painting her as a Miranda-level priestly ice queen who will cut down an employee for breathing too loudly. and A completely realistic girl misunderstood.

Anyway, Jackie’s only friend is her pregnant assistant Sydney (Betty Gilpin), who loves her job so much she plans to keep working until her water breaks, then return to work the next morning. Her distaste for Daniel seems to be rooted in her sense that he’s keeping Jackie from being more of a workaholic, which would be kind of sad if Gilpin hadn’t cooked up such a delicious meal of glaring daggers at Goldstein.

In fact, Gilpin stands out as the gem of a truly funny supporting cast, closely followed by an unrecognizable Jodie Whittaker as Daniel’s charming sister Lizzie, who is serving a life sentence for murder(!). Bradley Whitford is used sparingly but still noteworthy as a bitter lawyer with a passion for breakfast burritos and Tony Hale as a beleaguered HR director who would really like everyone to stop asking about the company’s zero-tolerance dating policy. Especially with Ol Parker, the delightfully silly director Mamma mia! here we go againon top of the film, it’s easy to imagine a funnier ensemble comedy Office romance It could have been.

Instead, these shenanigans are increasingly sidelined by the attraction between Daniel and Jackie, which is supposedly so irresistible that they are both willing to risk their careers for it. (Jackie, who has been falsely accused of sleeping with her business partners, will lose control of her family’s airline; Daniel fears he will be disbarred.) In theory, this should be pretty romantic: here are two people who never thought they could love anything more than company board meetings, discovering that there’s more to life than spreadsheets and slide decks!

In practice, the results are disappointing. Danielle and Jackie’s courtship has fun moments, including their first dance to a tropical cover of Mazzy Starr’s “Fade Into You” and the surprise revelation of Jackie’s Anglophobia (“I’m your kink,” he teases her). And it never hurts that Jackie, as a licensed pilot in her little plane, is able to fly them to a remote paradise at a moment’s notice. But despite both actors’ strenuous efforts to appear bright and cool, their chemistry rarely goes beyond “friendly co-workers who collaborate well on group projects” — let alone reach the heights of “star-crossed lovers” or “soulmates.”

Perhaps the film recognizes this deficiency, and leaves most of Jackie and Daniel’s physical connection to our imagination. The characters might talk a big game about how they shake their hair nonstop, or even about how messy it is when some bodily fluids get into the hair. But what we actually see is rather chaste. The first time they sleep together, they barely stumble into the bedroom before the movie stops and they wake up the next morning. Although not every adult romance has to be sexually explicit, this strict restriction is at odds with a script that often seems to border on Apatovian crudeness.

Regardless of whether we believe in the relationship between Jackie and Daniel, the script dictates that they do so – and so, after… formal The crisis of the third act, it all culminates in a grand romantic gesture. But here too, we are reminded of true romance Office romance He knows with the office. In this universe, “I love you” is immediately followed by “I want to work with you,” and then some unearned chatter about how your employees, when you really think about it, are like your family. For some, I think this could be considered a happy ending. Personally, I would rather go back to not dreaming about labor.