movie review
OFFICE ROMANCE
Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (graphic nudity, sexual material, language throughout). On Netflix.
As Jennifer Lopez makes her entrance in Netflix’s “Office Romance,” the seventies song “I Believe In Miracles” by Hot Chocolate (“Where ya from? You sexy thing!”) plays.
And, suddenly and wincingly, we’re back in 2000, when that retro tune and J.Lo were rom-com regulars.
Lo, how times have changed.
The “This Is Me… Now” singer is demonstrably obsessed with what she was then. Lopez has repeatedly and unsuccessfully tried over the past decade to return to the era of “Maid in Manhattan” and “Monster-In-Law” by starring in a string of mostly hopped-up duds: “Second Act,” “Marry Me,” “Shotgun Wedding” and now “Office Romance.”
What could that last one possibly be about?!
It’s time to give it a rest.
I still love the genre. But the key to saving romantic comedies is not by replicating 25-year-old movies that haven’t aged particularly well with the same stars. Lopez, by the way, is now far better suited to less fizzy roles, such as the strong mom in “Unstoppable.”
Even the core conflict of “Office Romance” is old-hat, “Ally McBeal” stuff — sleeping with a coworker.
Lopez’s latest love-challenged lead is Jackie Cruz, the powerful CEO of an airline called AirCruz that she founded with her father, Jack. He’s played by Edward James Olmos, one of several famous stars who are totally wasted by this material.
The logline calls Jackie a “workaholic,” although she just comes across as vaguely uptight to me, not unlike a certain planner of weddings.
Her meetings-and-emails existence is shaken up when another job-focused person arrives in the form of Daniel (Brett Goldstein), a shy British lawyer who steps up after his AirCruz boss Peter (Bradley Whitford, yet more waste) is sidelined with an injury.
Daniel firmly believes in leaving one’s personal life at the revolving door.
That lasts for about 15 minutes, when raw attraction intervenes. The pair meet in Jackie’s office, and Daniel gets a rather operatic erection and scurries away. Pretty creepy. But no! The script by Goldstein and Joe Kelly thinks some phallic fun on the clock is super sweet.
The hot lawyer defends Jackie when a rival airline makes a spurious allegation — that she rolled in the hay with the head of a Texas airport to secure gates that had been promised to her competitor. Her primary legal argument is that she hasn’t had sex in years, least of all with professional colleagues.
However, that claim is complicated when she starts secretly hopping in the sack with Daniel.
And, uh oh, the HR director played by “Veep” actor Tony Hale (wasted!) says the company has a “zero tolerance” policy when it comes to coworker relationships.
Most of the movie, directed by Ol Parker, is just that. “We can’t! We must! We can’t! We must!”. Breaking up the monotony is a peculiar subplot involving Daniel’s sister Lizzy (Jodie Whittaker), a foul-mouthed freak who’s imprisoned in New Jersey.
Here’s an advertising quote for the marketers: “A laugh an hour!” Daniel’s main dusty gag is observing differences in British and American culture: Football v. soccer, pounds v. dollars, the c-word and on and on. It’s actually surprising that a British person co-wrote this. They’re funny!
One supporting actor who is not wasted is Betty Gilpin as an AirCruz staffer named Sydney whose day-to-day is so dominated by work that she gives birth in an office closet. Unfortunately, we get a full, unobstructed view of it. The mix of this movie is truly bizarre — at once genitalia-joke lowbrow and scented-candle cute.
Even if Goldstein’s writing, in corporate parlance, leaves room for improvement, as an actor he’s “Office Romance”’s employee of the month. His honest, rough-around-the-edges TV persona from “Ted Lasso” wipes some of the vaseline off the camera lens. He draws us in with charm and mystery, and is both sensitive and unglamorous.
Not Lopez though. She’s always nice to see, like a visiting aunt. But she doesn’t have much chemistry with her co-star, in part because the script he wrote isn’t genuinely romantic. At one point, a tumbleweed rolled through my tear ducts. And I couldn’t discern any traits that made Jackie unique from the many interchangeable characters throughout her career.
During that “I Believe In Miracles” opening sequence, the song ends with another ancient cliche, a record scratch.
So too should Lopez’s rom-com career.
