Office Romance is a 1977 Soviet comedy film directed by Eldar Ryazanov. The film's plot is based on the stageplay Co-workers (lang) written by Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky, and tells the story of Ludmila Kalugina, head of a statistical bureau, and her subordinate, economist Anatoly Novoseltsev, who come from mutual aversion to love.

Plot

In Moscow in 1976, Anatoly Yefremovich Novoseltsev, a clumsy but goodhearted single father of two sons, works at a statistical bureau. The bureau is under the leadership of an industrious and strict single woman in her late 30s, Ludmila Prokofievna Kalugina, nicknamed "our frump" (, also translated "our hag") by her subordinates. He vies for a promotion and a pay raise, but is too timid to bring up this discussion. He is nevertheless encouraged by his good friend, former classmate and colleague Olga "Olya" Ryzhova, a married woman living in the suburbs, whose husband is recuperating from a major operation in Yessentuki and whose teenage son is an athlete. Another former classmate and old friend of his, Yuri "Yura" Grigorievich Samokhvalov, recently assigned back to Moscow from Switzerland, nominates his old friend as a head of the light industry department to Kalugina, but the nomination is rejected. Novoseltsev, heeding Samokhvalov's advice, nervously tries to flirt with "the Frump" at a party in Samokhvalov's apartment, but Kalugina is further repelled by his poor attempts to impress her. Eventually drunk, Novoseltsev becomes irritated and tells Kalugina that he considers her "dry, inhuman and heartless".