Office Romance
The ‘Special Relationship’ is given a playful frisson in Ol Parker’s corny but frequently chucklesome romcom with Brett Goldstein and Jennifer Lopez.
Office politics: Brett Goldstein and Jennifer Lopez
Image courtesy of Netflix.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
He’s a London-born TV actor, stand-up comic and podcaster. She’s an international superstar who has sold over 80 million records worldwide, is the recipient of six Guinness World Records, has been one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actresses and in 2012 was ranked, by Forbes magazine, the world’s most powerful celebrity. In Office Romance he plays an unassuming English attorney called Daniel Blanchflower recently arrived in New Jersey who, in a quirk of circumstance, ends up handling a high-profile litigation case for a major airline. She is the CEO of airCruz, the said airline, and is feared by her staff and only tolerated by her shareholders because her father started the business. There is also a strict zero tolerance dating policy at airCruz when she, Jackie Cruz (Jennifer Lopez), finds herself the subject of exacting media scrutiny following a meeting with a business associate and rival. There is only one man who could possibly stop the lawsuit, her ferocious lawyer Peter Vance (Bradley Whittford) – until he ends up in hospital just when Jackie needs him most…
You can see where things are going in this schmaltzy, formulaic and largely ridiculous romcom, but it really doesn’t matter thanks to the high laugh quotient. It not only stars the TV actor and stand-up comic Brett Goldstein, but it is written and co-produced by him, on the back of his massive success co-writing, creating and appearing in Ted Lasso and Shrinking. As they would say in that corner of London where Daniel Blanchflower emanates, the world is his winkles and cockles…
Daniel is a man of unbending privacy, with a family secret to boot, and he plays down his East End beginnings to better get on in the world. He is not that far removed from the foul-mouthed midfielder Roy Kent that Goldstein played in Ted Lasso, and there’s a priceless scene, a monologue even, delivered by Goldstein on the ‘c’ word. And Jennifer Lopez drops in her own football allusion, referencing Jude Bellingham (“the great midfielder”), who only scored for England this Wednesday. Indeed, the Special Relationship is exploited to joyous effect, with the Lopez-Goldstein bond following the recent Anglo-American relations explored in Finding Emily, My Oxford Yearand The Idea of You.
There’s more than a whiff of Richard Curtis in the film’s third act, but the chemistry between Lopez and Goldstein is a good deal more resonant than what George Clooney and Julia Roberts brewed up in the same director’s abysmal Ticket to Paradise (2022). Goldstein is hardly one’s idea of a romantic leading man, but at the rate he’s going (cf. All of You) he could be the next Cary Grant. There’s excellent support, too, from Betty Gilpin as the stubbornly pregnant and foul-mouthed Sydney Bloom, Jackie’s brutally loyal assistant, and from Jodie Whittaker as the foul-mouthed murderess Lizzy (presumably named after Lizzie Borden). There’s a little too much acting from the likes of Tony Hale and Bradley Whitford, and Michael Andrews’ score is on the corny side, but the visuals are ace (the Dominican Republic looks mouth-watering) while a childbirth sequence is unquestionably one of a kind. So, better broad than bored.
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Brett Goldstein, Betty Gilpin, Amy Sedaris, Jodie Whittaker, Mary Wiseman, Tony Hale, Bradley Whitford, Edward James Olmos, Tony Plana, Roger Bart, Rick Hoffman, Jackie Sandler, Michelle Hurd, Ali Stroker, Lisa Gilroy, Will Sasso, Norm Lewis, Jessica Keenan Wynn.
Dir Ol Parker, Pro Brett Goldstein, Joe Kelly, Aaron Ryder, Andrew Swett, Jennifer Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas and Benny Medina, Screenplay Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly, Ph Robert Yeoman, Pro Des Kristi Zea, Ed Peter Lambert, Music Michael Andrews, Costumes Caroline Duncan.
Netflix Studios/Nuyorican Productions/RPC/For the Table/Hey Buddy-Netflix.
114 mins. USA. 2026. UK and US Rel: 5 June 2026. Cert. 15.
