Office Romance (1977)

Touches You

Good concept, poorly executed.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Seeing this, without exaggeration, a brilliant film by Eldar Ryazanov, I first thought of how valuable in a human's life can be love. It is a feeling that cannot be expressed in words and to understand the mind — you need to trust only your heart. This feel really changes the man, it reveals its best features, and the inclination of the face, which he had not even suspected — it happened with the main characters Anatoly Efremovich and Ludmila Prokofievna (Alisa Freindlich and Andrey Myagkov perfectly demonstrated the fullness of the feelings of the two lovers). Svetlana Nemolyaeva was also incredibly sincere — I got her a feeling of emptiness and ordinariness of everyday life, the desire to return to the past and a terrible disappointment, and from the man who once was everything to her... Music composer Andrei Petrov and texts of the poems create a memorable impression — happiness is actually very close to us, just need to learn how to see. The eternal quest of man in the vast world itself often lead him to a standstill, and how wise and happy are those who see in man not only the outer shell, but also his mental, personal qualities (Novoseltsev), and those who use the feelings of others only for the benefit of themselves, do not know the true prices of sincere relations is empty in a moral sense (Samokhvalov).The one and only masterpiece, which never gets old — thank you so much, Master of the human souls, Eldar Aleksandrovich Ryazanov! A modern interpretation (re-make), so-called "Office Romance: Present Day", in my opinion, even not comes close to the original film and, of course, something big and innovative is not intended.

"Roman" is Russian for "romance," but also for "novel," and this film is in many ways like a novel in its range and subtlety, and the complexity of its characters. It's a quite excellent, and really genuine piece of film. It's in two parts and it's long, but never drags and so much of the subtle art that Eldar Ryazanov brings to his direction is in the fact that everything is perfectly timed. The length gives the narrative time to breathe, the characters time to play off each other in genuine good scenes, and subplots time to play out. As with a good novel, there is more than one tone. "Tragicomedy" is a word that gets applied, and I think it's the right one. It's hilariously funny quite often, but also is sometimes so sad that it's hard to watch -- without the shift in tone ever being jarring. It's great how well things can turn out when everything else is left simple so that the characters and what they decide to do can be humanly complicated. Everything is accomplished with an understanding script, and well-chosen cast of true actors, and a director who applies real talent to the material. The office setting never becomes stifling, and the expansive length and detailed script let us get just enough of a sense of this office at a real place with a host of believable people working in it, without detracting from the main elements of the story. We know what will happen in the end -- in the first few minutes we know to follow how Novoseltsev will break through Kalugina's facade and his own shyness to win her over. But we're still kept on the edge of our seats to find out just how. "Office Romance" is extremely sweet in a way that is never off-putting -- probably at least in part because the characters can be so brutal with each other. It's hard to imagine the viewer who wouldn't be won over.

Sweet memories for kids like me growing up seeing Soviet films in China during 80's. Thanks to those people doing translations and voices, I found this one so enjoyable. Otherwise, I believe it would be impossible for me to laugh so much when seeing this movie. So many great films from Soviet Union...

This is really a very good movie - if you haven't seen it yet, do so! It's a really funny movie... I don't know if you can get this movie in english, if you understand russian, this is a movie you h a v e to see!