I HAVE SEEN BOTH THE GOOD and bad sides of working with fellow employees who are in a love relationship with each other. In my experience, it does not matter if they are boyfriends, girlfriends or married; there still is a different dynamic when a couple are working together. The obvious difference would be like the time when a couple had an argument outside of work but brought the fight into the office. The girlfriend worked in my department and one day she walked in with disheveled hair and wrinkled clothing. She did not talk to any of us the entire day as she made multiple trips to the bathroom where I believed she would cry. I say this because she always came back with the makeup around her eyes always being different. Her boyfriend worked in customer service and from what fellow employees told me, the boyfriend was curt talking with the customers. It was not a good situation. The two did not last long at the company, nor did their relationship. On the other hand, I worked at a place where two employees had fallen in love and got married. After their honeymoon they returned to work and not only did they excel in their respective positions, but they were quickly promoted up the ladder to positions with even more responsibilities. During the day you would not necessarily know they were married to each other; they always maintained a professional demeanor.      ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE, I WORKED at a company where a married couple were both employed. My job entailed me interacting with each of them from time to time, but not on a consistent basis. So, part of my narrative comes from bits of news I heard from other employees at the company. This couple were both friendly and helpful towards me. However, other employees did not experience such behavior, and in turn would be cautious about what they said around each of them. She was older than her husband, I would guess by at least 10-15 years; not that it mattered. However, she worked on the switchboard and according to one of the husband’s co-workers in the sales department, she would direct new sales leads to her husband. I cannot vouch for the truth of this, but for my job I was aware he always had many new customers being set up on our computer system. There were other comments employees made to me about this couple, but I had no way to prove they were accurate. All I knew was I never felt awkward around them, unlike other employees. I hope this explains why I was tentative about seeing this dramatic, comedy romance.      NO CHILD WANTS TO EVER SEE their parents in a compromising situation. Imagine what it must have been like for Zara Ford, played by Joey King (The Kissing Booth, Bullet Train), to walk in unexpectedly on her boss and mother. Some things you cannot erase from your memory. With Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos, Bombshell) as Brooke Harwood, Zac Efron (The Iron Claw, Ricky Stanicky) as Chris Cole, Kathy Bates (The Miracle Club, Summer Camp) as Leila Ford and Liza Koshy (Players, Work It) as Eugenie; I thought with such a great cast, they would make movie magic. However, though they did their best the script was so poorly done that many scenes were not even believable. The story line was like many other prior films which I would not have had an issue with at the start, but there was nothing new being offered. It was predictable and though everyone did a respectable job of acting, there was not much chemistry going on within the cast. There was no deep emotional connection that would have added depth to the story, which was a shame because I wanted to like all the characters. With a sharper focus on the subject and a couple of rewrites, this could have been a better picture.

1 ¾ stars