Remember the last time Jennifer Lopez tried to get us to see her perform live? In 2024, she planned a widespread tour after the release of her Ben Affleck–driven record This Is Me … Now, a spiritual sequel to her Ben Affleck–driven record in 2002, This Is Me … Then. Like a lot of artists, she had to cancel the tour, whether because of the low ticket sales or, as fans were told, so she could “be with her children, family, and close friends.” She did at least bless us with a movie–cum–music video for her album, which did not make sense and which I watched four or five or 50 times.
This is all to say that Lopez is maybe not a touring act anymore. Her albums have only ever been fine, with a few exceptional singles that become undeniable earworms. She’s a great dancer, she’s a remarkable stage presence, and I often have dreams of sleeping on her butt. But what she has always been, whether she wants to lean into it or not, is a movie star, and of one particular ilk. The Wedding Planner, Maid in Manhattan, Monster-in-Law, Shall We Dance—no one acts her big brown eyes off more than Lopez in a movie that you will absolutely watch on a JetBlue flight in, like, 11 months. And at long last, she has returned to form with a new Netflix movie.
Office Romance is, literally, just that, and I’m going to spoil this movie now, but if you’re doing it right, you’ve already pressed play at 8 a.m. while doing dishes and let it run through twice. Lopez plays Jackie Cruz, the CEO of a small airline about to expand into Dallas–Fort Worth. Brett Goldstein, the writer and producer, plays Daniel Blanchflower, her British lawyer with a cartoonishly large penis. “How big is his penis?” someone yells at me from blocks away, running toward me until I give them an answer. Well, his penis is SO big that in the scene when Jackie and Daniel meet and shake hands, Daniel gets a boner. “How big of a boner?” they yell back, trying to pry open the doors of the bus I just entered to escape the fray. His boner is SO big that his expensive-looking suit pants are seemingly made of Lycra, so permissive is the fabric to accommodate the entire length of his bulge. It’s like he’s carrying around a child’s hammer.
The boner scene is somewhat endemic to this movie, and to the best kinds of movies Lopez makes. It’s rated R (maybe because everyone keeps saying the word cunt, a reminder that Goldstein is indeed very British and this movie has British sensibilities), and it’s saucy, silly, stupid, and fun. Jackie is somehow being undercut at work by the board and her father, while also being feared by everyone else who works at the office. Her romance with Daniel plays out immediately, no will-they, won’t-they to spare, and only under the most absurd corporate circumstances: A lawsuit against her airline hinges on whether she has ever gone out with anyone at work, which makes her dating her lawyer all the more scandalous. Betty Gilpin plays Lopez’s quirky best friend (subcategory: pregnant), who manages to turn everything in her life, including giving birth at the office, into something about her boss and her lawyer possibly being in love. (We find out who the father of her baby is only at the end, during the credits, when it doesn’t matter and no one cares.) Edward James Olmos plays Lopez’s stern but sweet father, Captain Jack Cruz (no one who wrote this movie knows of another Captain Jack, apparently), a healing experience for anyone born in the early ’90s who watched Selena too many times as a rerun on Peachtree TV. Tony Hale is also there, mostly to groan.
Is this movie … good? Wrong question. Is it funny? Shut up, you, shut up. The point simply is that this movie exists. Gossip suggests that Goldstein has had a long-standing crush on Lopez that turned into a real-life fling, and he wrote the movie with her in mind for the part. They indeed have some chemistry, though not nearly as much as they do on the interview circuit. But no matter! Jennifer Lopez makes the perfect thing to turn on when you have to fold a bunch of laundry or ignore your sister who’s visiting for spring break or while you get audited. Watching her gaze lovingly at some guy is a panacea for all that ails us: boredom, quietude, inertia.
This—this!—is what Lopez was made for. Enough of these forgettable records, flaccid lead singles destined for run time at your local Burlington Coat Factory! No more trying to convince me into prestige dramas like Kiss of the Spider Woman, Oscar bait that gets reduced to a commercial bomb because no one wants to watch a prison musical that isn’t Chicago. JLo Beauty?? You expect me to believe that someone born in the ’60s who looks like THAT is using a $42 eye mask? That’s it?? To borrow some parlance from this very stupid and completely wonderful movie: Get fucked, ya cunt!
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There is a solution to our movie ennui, and that’s just giving Jennifer Lopez two to 60 movies a year to churn out as she sees fit, movies where she is always the lead, where she is always clumsy but adorable, where she is in control and yet flailing at the same time. Put her in every pantsuit known to man. Have her do a live show that’s just her reenacting The Wedding Planner, where she plays every part. Make her act with every bland-faced white guy in the industry! She’s already done it with Goldstein, Josh Duhamel, Owen Wilson, Milo Ventimiglia, Michael Vartan, and Alex O’Loughlin, just to name a few names that I had to Google. What’s Aaron Eckhart doing these days? Get him in there!
This is her real talent: elevating a very bad script and perfectly forgettable actors into something that you’re willing to watch a few times, the soothing dull hum of a rom-com blanketing your empty brain. You think I’m watching this movie for the nonsensical subplot about Daniel’s sister being in an American prison for chopping someone’s head off? I’m here because I want to pretend that a woman as hot as Lopez somehow hasn’t gone on a date in four years. I’m here because it’s fun to imagine a CEO and her lawyer confessing their love for each other during a press conference held in front of a backdrop of clouds, making it seem like they’re falling in love in the middle of the sky. I’m here to watch Lopez say “for fuck’s sake” 15 times (gotta earn that R rating) in ways that vary from completely unbelievable to wildly unnecessary. Absurd. Garbage. Forgettable and undeniable. Let’s watch it again.
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