Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Office Romance is a film in two parts about the relationship between Ludmila Kalugina, the director of a statistical bureau, and her employee, Anatoly Novoseltsev. The film starts off with Anatoly who is trying to get a promotion and a raise for his children. After some advice from an old friend, and newly appointed co-director Yuri Samokhvalov, Anatoly attempts to flirt with Ludmila leading to some hilarious antics. Although this film was relatively long it did not seem to drag on and kept the viewer interested by focusing on the relationship between the characters and their development as well. The office, which is the main stage of action, is not only a setting, but also a place of observation. Throughout many of the scenes we are shown the office life and this helps the viewer get an idea of how people lived during this era. Office Romance also does a good job of interweaving multiple subplots throughout the film like the story of Yuri and Olga. The montage scenes interspersed throughout the film helped to convey the passage of time, but also helped to establish the mood of the following scenes. For example, the montage scene, which shows the rainy weather and a melancholy song, helps set the somber tone of the next scene involving Yuri and Olga, and his rejection of her love letters. Although it is classified as a romantic comedy, it surpasses that genre and through genuine characters and touching scenes this film is able to delve into deeper, more meaningful themes that are not often addressed in romantic comedies.

"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.

This is one of the movies made by the best Soviet Director Eldar Ryazanov. The story is about the relationship between a boss (female) and a male worker in the Statistics Organization in Moscow. Unfortunately, this movie could be enjoyed by those who speak some Russian. There are a lot of jokes, which in my opinion are not easy to translate. Only those who know about life in Soviet Union and perhaps visited it (or have some friends over there) could thoroughly enjoy it. Many years later this movie remains one of the favourite movies in Former Soviet Union.

Oh, good old 70s... Oh, incredible Alysa Freindlich :))). An incredibly kind, cute and lyrical comedy, one of the most popular Soviet movies of all times.