Netflix continues its erratic quest for an original lineup of movies, with some surprising hits and other big misses. Plus, there’s the never-ending debate about what should or shouldn’t be allowed in theaters, even for a little while. What is firmly planted on Netflix and only Netflix is Office romancethe new romantic comedy starring Brett Goldstein and Jennifer Lopez. Is it really worth checking out, though? Well, both critics and audiences have given their reviews, and it’s pretty clear that it’s… pretty mediocre.
While everyone on Earth obviously knows Jennifer Lopez, you might also know Brett Goldstein as the perpetually angry football player Roy Kent. Ted Lasso. But he has done much more than that, also his co-creator Shrinkageperhaps the best comedy on television, where he also wrote a number of episodes. Now, he wrote Office romance also, in addition to starring as Lopez’s love interest. There were rumors that he and Lopez ended up dating in real life, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. At least right now.
As it stands, critics and fans alike agree that the film isn’t… amazing. He currently boasts one rare tie on Rotten Tomatoes with a critic score of 51% and an audience score of 51%. It’s 6/10 on IMDb, which isn’t much better.
The film stars Lopez as Jackie, the CEO of Air Cruz, who has a strict no-dates policy at her company, but that changes when Goldstein, a lawyer, starts working for her. You can probably guess what happens from there.
The movie is…a lot. His tone changes throughout to being rather sweet incredibly tumultuous, including a moment later in the film that is something of a jumpscare, and is currently circulating on social media.
Why aren’t critics raving about it? Here is a sample:
- RogerEbert.com (0.5/4) – “The dialogue sounds like it came out of an R-rated fortune cookie. Even worse, when you think it’s over, there are extra scenes during the credits to prolong the suspense.”
- AV Club (D-) – “While the romance here is weak at best, the comedy is even worse, often mistaking awkward over-sharing for streaks. If this was meant to be a return to form for Lopez, it wasn’t a satisfying return.”
Lopez, obviously, is a veteran of many romantic comedies, from The Wedding Planner to Maid in Manhattan. These films received even worse than Office romance (The Wedding Planner has a brutal 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating), but that didn’t stop them from becoming genre classics. We’ll see if that can happen with Office romance.
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