No doubt Jennifer Lopez currently is queen of the failing rom-com genre, a once-vibrant Hollywood staple that studios sadly relegated mostly to streaming in recent times. Of course there have been exceptions that made a splash in theaters, notably sleeper hit Anyone but You in 2024. Generally, though, this isn’t the case, at least for the classic romantic comedy template.
Lopez’s latest Netflix confection, Office Romance, must have been irresistible for the star since Ted Lasso vets Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly wrote it specifically for her and said they wouldn’t make it unless she was in it. She jumped at the chance, almost certainly because her co-star Goldstein ogles her in this thing like she is some sort of goddess, even upon their first meeting, and getting visibly excited down there just from the mere touch of her hand. In the parlance of rom-coms that is known as “meeting cute.” I describe that scene with a little more decorum than is played in this film, which never misses a chance to go for outrageous R-rated raunch, rather the kind of sweetness in other Lopez rom-coms like the criminally underrated Marry Me or Maid In Manhattan.
Lopez also gets a step up in societal and business status in this one as a workaholic CEO of an airline, Cruz Air. She is Jackie Cruz, daughter of the company’s founder, Jack Cruz (Edward James Olmos, her father in Selena) and looking to make her own mark in the office where personal relationships of the romantic kind are expressly forbidden. Of course that gives this movie its conflict when newly hired lawyer Daniel Blanchflower (Goldstein) shows up to prep the boss on a deposition.
The film opened with two separate scenes showing each on a disastrous date, so we know their single status and it is obvious right away where this is all going. That’s even after Jackie berates him for his performance during a deposition, but she later apologizes when it is clear he knows what he is doing. It is only a matter of time before these two workaholics find more in common and even take a romantic getaway to the Dominican Republic, but how do they keep this new relationship under wraps in the office — especially with Jackie’s planned expansion of the airline into other cities under attack?
Ol Parker is the director here, and he is a filmmaker entirely comfortable in this genre, having made one of the best in recent years, the theatrical release Ticket to Paradise with George Clooney and Julia Roberts. Now they had chemistry. The bonding here between Jackie and Daniel just doesn’t make me feel it, and for a successful rom-com, you have to feel it. Lopez gets to wear the fashionable clothes, she gets to talk the corporate talk, and by the end she has the “come to Jesus” moment in front of all her employees we have been waiting for. Fine, but nothing we haven’t seen a lot. As for their chemistry here, Lopez and Goldstein lack the magic formula.
Also, Goldstein’s and Kelly’s script seems wrapped in the well-worn cliches of the genre without offering anything new to the time-honored formula. It is almost like they set out to make a romantic comedy beat for beat of what they have seen before. They also have a tendency to really go for the raunch in this one, and it seems out of place. A scene toward the end where the pair end up delivering the very pregnant colleague, Sydney Bloom’s (Betty Gilpin) baby is soooooo over the top (and needlessly graphic) that Netflix viewers may want to switch the channel without finding out how this all ends.
Oh, but we know how it will all end, don’t we? That’s the problem with this all too predictable Office Romance. The fault really isn’t in the stars. Both Lopez and Goldstein, two actors who are always watchable in the right roles, do their thing but it seems somehow artificial in this package. As for the rest of the cast, Gilpin as colleague and confidante of Jackie just really is way too dialed up, the pregnancy angle thrown in for laughs that just don’t materialize. Bradley Whitford‘s boss, Peter Vance, also seems disconnected from reality. Tony Hale has a one-dimensional role as head of HR but his best moments are in the end credits sequence which throws in a lot of unused HR gags, some of them funnier than anything in the movie that preceded them.
Producers are Aaron Ryder, Andrew Swett, Lopez, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Benny Medina, Goldstein, and Kelly.
Title: Office Romance
Distributor: Netflix (streaming only)
Release date: June 5, 2026
Director: Ol Parker
Screenwriters: Brett Goldstein & Joe Kelly
Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Brett Goldstein, Betty Gilpin, Amy Sedaris, Tony Hale, Rick Hoffman, Jodie
Whittaker, Mary Wiseman, Bradley Whitford, Edward James Olmos,
Tony Plana, Roger Bart, Natalie Ortega, Jackie Sandler, Michelle Hurd, Mo Welch,
Donald Elise Watkins, Brian Gallivan, Ali Stroker, Scott Seiss, Lisa Gilroy, Will Sasso
Rating: R
Running time: 1 hr, 53 mins
