Matthew Bond review
Are Jennifer Lopez and Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein in a relationship? Lopez says no but the rumours continue to keep gossip columnists busy.
And now we all – well, at least all Netflix subscribers – get the chance to see the film that sparked those rumours, Office Romance, in which Lopez plays Jackie Cruz, the boss of successful New Jersey airline, Air Cruz, and Goldstein is Daniel Blanchflower (I’m guessing Goldstein is a Tottenham Hotspur supporter) the new British in-house lawyer who falls for her. Hard.
The problem is that such in-house relationships are strictly against company rules, with anyone found guilty of breaching them facing instant dismissal.
There’s no doubt that Lopez and Goldstein have decent screen chemistry, helped to some extent by a screenplay Goldstein co-wrote alongside one of the creators of Ted Lasso, Joe Kelly.
But while the general direction of rom-com travel is comfortingly familiar (bad, then good, then bad again…) the tone is remarkably uneven, despite the director being Ol Parker, the British film-maker responsible for Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again and, more pertinently, Ticket To Paradise, the classy rom-com starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts.
Goodness, Americans like their comedy broad and unsubtle, don’t they? It used to be that whenever laughter levels flagged, some unfortunate character would be struck by a sudden attack of diarrhoea.
Here Parker prefers a scene of sudden sexual arousal, which is ridiculous and feels completely out of place, as does a sequence that involves repeated use of the C-word in a way that is simply dishonest. It is not less offensive in Britain, as Goldstein and Parker must know.
On the plus side, a long-awaited birthing scene (Cruz’s right-hand woman, nicely played by Glow star Betty Gilpin, is heavily pregnant throughout) is very funny, as is a sequence involving a food truck and The West Wing star Bradley Whitford. In the end, it’s J-Lo’s sheer star power that gets this one over the line.
Are Jennifer Lopez and Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein in a relationship? Lopez says no but the rumours continue to keep gossip columnists busy
There’s no doubt that Lopez and Goldstein have decent screen chemistry, helped to some extent by a screenplay Goldstein co-wrote alongside one of the creators of Ted Lasso, Joe Kelly
Brian Viner review
Office Romance (15, 94 mins, HHIII) is an amiable if forgettable romcom directed by Ol Parker and co-written by Brett Goldstein (of Ted Lasso fame).
He’s shamelessly crafted himself a role as an English lawyer, Daniel, working for a US airline, who Jennifer Lopez, as Jackie, the company’s CEO, finds increasingly irresistible.
There’s also a rather superfluous sub-plot featuring Jodie Whittaker as Daniel’s incarcerated sister, and lots of culture-clash gags, many of which work nicely, while a few (notably a routine about how the English habitually use the C-word and don’t mean any offence by it) are chronically misjudged.
However, I did laugh at Daniel’s casual football analogy for being out of his depth – ‘I’m like Jude Bellingham playing right-back for your Sunday League pub team’ – which needs so much explaining that he swiftly regrets saying it.
And I liked Betty Gilpin as Jackie’s over-protective second-in-command, who’s aghast at the prospect of Jackie falling for Daniel. ‘It would be,’ she says, ‘like Helen of Troy having sex with Mr Bean.’
Office Romance is on Netflix.
