The Flat-Out Worst ‘Rom-Com’ of 2026 (So Far…)

Netflix (and J-Lo) need to hang their heads in shame

Brett Goldstein and Jennifer Lopez in Office Romance, Netflix Studios

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You know, in terms of mediocrity, we can — and do — take a lot these days. Stoically.

We mostly roll our eyes and accept inferior situations, impositions and outcomes with forebearance, whether it’s spending an hour and 15 minutes on the phone waiting for your turn for your customer “service” call to be answered, or having to buy absurdly priced printer cartridges that tell us we need to purchase another one when they’re only half empty, or 25% “suggested minimum” tips digitally proposed in return for someone handing you a bagel. We take it.

But there are times when, truly, the cup runneth over.

I’m one of the most patient people ever: more often than not, I prefer to turn the figurative other cheek when aggravating situations arise rather than adding to my stress levels any further. But the other evening, having been disappointed yet again by the tripe that passes for televised “entertainment” these days, I really have to rant. In writing. To get it out of my system. To keep my sanity.

The trigger for all of this bile was the latest Netflix “rom-com,” Office Romance, which I was hoping would have at least a single-digit percentage of the enjoyment value of past workplace-situated films like 9 to 5, The Internship, or Horrible Bosses. Or even a sub-atomic particle of the hilarity of the best cubicle movie ever, Office Space. Alas, it was not to be.

Look, I know what you’re thinking: what did you expect? Netflix + romcom + Jennifer Lopez can only equal humdrum at best. And I would have settled, believe me, for humdrum. This was something else.

Getting J-Lo out of the way: the film plays out much like something her publicist prompted ChatGPT to crank out to consolidate her comfortable rom-com actress positioning. Her role in the film portrays her as beautiful, successful, smart, sexy, and glamorous, but also vulnerable, romantic, and lonely. You get the picture.

But, well, par for the course. We know she can’t really act, and that’s not what we expect of her. What really rankles about this lazy cliché of a movie, instead, is the script. It had me reeling with incredulity that such a predictable and unimaginative plotline, padded out with such puerile and unfunny writing, could ever be green-lit by adults responsible for production budgets.

But that’s not the worst of it.

What was worse was the cringe factor of the vulgarity, both verbal and visual, liberally sprinkled throughout the film. In every case, it added nothing to the plot or the dialogue, and, on the contrary, made watching it in the company of anyone else (even oneself) simply embarrassing.

To give you an idea: within the first 30 minutes of this paltry imitation of what is positioned as a “romantic comedy” (lest we forget what “rom-coms” are supposed to be), we hear various references to masturbation (at the table over the course of a first-time dinner date); an endless diatribe featuring the C-word every three sylables; the mention of irritable bowel syndrome; and a visible tenting-the-pants erection.

Later on in the film, we’re treated to expressions like “you don’t shit where you eat,” pathetic attempts at double-entendres like “ I want him to come” (said by the head of an airline to the subordinate she has been flirting with, as she suggests he accompany her on a business trip), and up-close-and-personal shots of a hairy newborn infant’s head coming out of a vagina. Really charming if you’re chowing down on that evening bowl of pasta as you watch this sorry mess.

Why all the coarseness? I can’t help thinking that during the various committee rewrites that these slapdash productions always involve, someone decided that the bland proceedings needed some ‘spicing up,” and proceeded to insert sexual and scatalogical quips at random points in the script. Rather like a cook tasting a watery potato soup and, finding it insipid, starting to add salt, sugar, tabasco, and mustard as the mood takes him. Ending up, predictably, with a brackish, unappetizing mess.

J-Lo’s co-star is the British actor Brett Goldstein, who is also guilty of co-writing the atrocious script. His schtick in the film is to try to play a combination of tongue-tied Brit fish-out-of-water-in-America, in the traditional Hugh Grant vein, and a sharp, dreamboat corporate lawyer. A character contradiction that evidently never occurred to anyone involved here.

The film was directed by another Brit, Ol Parker, whose thin filmography includes another patently unfunny “rom com,” 2022’s Ticket To Paradise, in which he signally fails to capture a shred of romantic chemistry between rom-com megastars George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

Dissuaded yet?

And I haven’t even mentioned one particularly disturbing aspect of the film: it’s ha-ha, isn’t it kooky? superficial treatment of the very real issue of potentially manipulative workplace romantic and sexual relationships between a company’s senior executive and an employee who reports directly to them. Would this film have been made if the J-Lo character were played by a Harvey Weinstein lookalike, and the object of his lust a young female lawyer working for him? I think not.

Perhaps the cardinal sin of this movie, however, is simply the glaring mismatch between its crassness and the typical rom-com audience of college-educated, middle-to-upper income women aged 25 to 44. I’m not an expert in that demographic, but something tells me they want something better, funnier, more clever than this.

There is, of course, a proper place for raunchiness in film. For example, in sophomoric comedies aimed at teens and young men, such as the American Pie and Hangover franchises, or Wedding Crashers. Those films were funny (often genuinely hilarious in fact) because, aside from being well-acted and well-written, they used profanity and crudeness in believable contexts. Office Romance does the opposite, clumsily and inappropriately.

Inevitably, some of the low-bar drones that pass for film critics these days sang the film’s praises.

Erik Childress of Movie Madness Podcast gushed that Goldstein “wrote Jennifer Lopez the best rom-com she has ever had.” Robert Kodjder of Flickering Myth opines that “Office Romance makes a point of being funny while offering something to say about workplace romances.” And Beth Webb of Empire Magazine would have us believe the film to be “a true rom-com from beginning to end, penned brilliantly by Brett Goldstein and Joe Kelly.” God help us.

Trust this review instead. Really, I cannot dis-recommend this clueless, tasteless effort enough.

But by all means, subject yourself to it if you must. Just to see how far we’ve regressed, as a species, since a certain Harry met a certain Sally.

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