Office Romance is a rom-com that gets everything wrong — and somehow stays watchable until the last minute

📺 Netflix rom-coms aren’t by any means revolutionary works of cinema, but some fare better than others — Office Romance does not. Starring Jennifer Lopez, who is no stranger to rom-coms, the Netflix production is proof that even A-listers can’t save a film doomed from the get-go. Some train wrecks, however, you can’t help but watch… and begrudgingly enjoy. Let’s break it down.

The plot: Jackie Cruz (Jennifer Lopez) is the iron-fisted CEO of AirCruz who runs her airline the way most people run a military operation — including a non-negotiable no-fraternization policy for every employee. The policy holds up fine until Daniel Blanchflower (Brett Goldstein), a British lawyer assigned to her team, shows up and makes it considerably harder to follow. What starts as a secret, strictly-against-the-rules romance between two workaholics who’ve built their lives around their careers quickly spirals into chaos — begging the question of whether the rules you wrote for everyone else apply to you too.

Why the film is a disaster… and arguably a crime against cinema: Office Romance takes everything that’s good about the genre and throws it out the window. No slow burn, no heartfelt heart-to-hearts, and no initial pining. Both Lopez and Goldstein lack on-screen chemistry, and their interactions feel artificially forced. The way their “relationship” starts is abrupt — as a viewer, you’d be shocked their first interaction didn’t end with Daniel facing a harassment lawsuit and an immediate deportation order. It seems, however, the filmmakers didn’t care one iota about realism. The film’s pacing is stiff and unusual, with several abrupt cuts that give the impression the editing department was running on a Pop-Tart and hopes of a better gig.

That said, we could not help but watch. So disastrous is the movie that it works its way back to being entertaining. The implausibility alone is enough to keep you hooked until the very end. Office Romance certainly does not fit the bill of a good rom-com — in fact, it’s one we imagine will be quietly removed from the platform while everyone’s asleep. But if we’re talking entertainment value? We ate it up — though perhaps not in the way its creators intended.

The verdict: If you’re looking for a feel-good rom-com, sit this one out. If you’re in the mood for a movie that will distract you from a bad day by offering something entertainingly worse, Office Romance is your best shot. Just be warned, the film also features several unnecessarily explicit scenes, so keep the remote handy if you’re squeamish.

WHERE TO WATCH IT- Office Romance is streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer on YouTube (watch, runtime: 2:42).