{ "id": "epas0y01tg", "slug": "office-romance-1977-film", "title": "Office Romance (Служебный роман) (1977 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance", "label": "Comedy and romantic films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1970s", "label": "Comedies of the 1970s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1970s" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1970s.yr-1977-1979", "label": "Released 1977 to 1979", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1970s.yr-1977-1979" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000: Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "path": [ { "id": "geo.eeu", "label": "Eastern Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946", "label": "Eastern Europe · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.eeu.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Office Romance (Служебный роман) is a 1977 Mosfilm two-part comedy by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky, based on their play Co-Workers, starring Alisa Freindlikh and Andrey Myagkov; it drew 58.4 million Soviet viewers and won the 1979 RSFSR State Prize.", "snippet": "Office Romance (Служебный роман) is a 1977 Mosfilm two-part comedy by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky, based on their play Co-Workers, starring Alisa Freindlikh and Andrey Myagkov; it drew 58.4 million Soviet viewers and won the 1979 RSFSR State Prize.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.comedy-romance.comedies-of-the-1970s.yr-1977-1979", "markdown": "# Office Romance (Служебный роман) (1977 film)\n\n**Office Romance** (Служебный роман) is a 1977 Soviet two-part lyrical comedy directed by Eldar Ryazanov, made at the Mosfilm studio, in which a timid single father at a Moscow statistics office courts his stern director to win a promotion and unexpectedly falls in love with her.[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) • [2](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/) It became one of the leaders of Soviet film distribution, seen by about 58.4 million viewers, and remains one of the most popular Russian-language comedies.[3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Premiere | 26 October 1977, USSR[3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/) |\n| Director and writers | Eldar Ryazanov; screenplay by Emil Braginsky and Ryazanov, based on their play *Sosluzhivtsy* (Co-Workers)[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) |\n| Principal cast | Alisa Freindlikh (Lyudmila Prokofyevna Kalugina), Andrey Myagkov (Anatoly Yefremovich Novoseltsev), Oleg Basilashvili (Yuri Samokhvalov), Svetlana Nemolyaeva (Olga Ryzhova), Liya Akhedzhakova (the secretary Verochka)[4](https://seelrc-iis.trinity.duke.edu/ctf2/summary.aspx?filmID=21) |\n| Audience | 58.4 million viewers in the USSR; box-office leader of 1978[3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/) • [1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) |\n| Honors | RSFSR State Prize named after the Vasilyev brothers (1979); *Sovetsky Ekran* readers named it best film of 1978 and Freindlikh and Myagkov best actors of the year[5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance) |\n| Ratings | Kinopoisk 8.3/10 (over 841,000 votes); IMDb 8.2–8.3/10[3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/) • [5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance) |\n| Remake | *Office Romance. Our Time* (Служебный роман. Наше время), directed by Sarik Andreasyan, 2011[6](https://www.vokrug.tv/product/show/sluzhebnyi_roman/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nAnatoly Yefremovich Novoseltsev is a shy, long-divorced senior statistician in a large statistical office in 1970s Moscow, raising two sons alone and without career prospects.[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) The office director, Lyudmila Prokofyevna Kalugina, is a strictly businesslike, lonely woman whom subordinates call \"our mymra\" (a drab, unattractive woman) and \"the old woman\" behind her back, although she is only 36.[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) • [5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance) She has a Volga car with a personal driver and a good apartment in central Moscow, but comes to work earlier than everyone and leaves later than everyone.[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman)\n\nNovoseltsev wants the vacant post of head of the light-industry department, and Kalugina has already rejected his candidacy to his face as an uninitiative employee.[7](https://www.domkino.tv/announce/15588) His old friend Yuri Samokhvalov, a successful and enterprising deputy director, advises him to court Kalugina to get the promotion.[2](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/) The courtship that begins from self-interested motives transforms both characters and awakens genuine love.[5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance) A parallel storyline follows Olga Ryzhova, a married colleague who is desperately but unrequitedly in love with Samokhvalov while her husband is away on a business trip.[8](https://filmnavi.ru/1977/sluzhebnyj-roman) • [16](https://klassiki.online/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Klassiki_OfficeRomance.pdf)\n\n## Production\n\nThe film grew out of the play *Sosluzhivtsy* (Co-Workers), which Ryazanov wrote with his regular co-author Emil Braginsky; the two worked on the play for 20 days, and it ran in several theaters.[9](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/) The play had been written in 1971, and the authors decided to film it hoping to repeat the success of *[The Irony of Fate](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-irony-of-fate)*.[10](https://m.5-tv.ru/tabloid/408458/95-let-bez-eldara-razanova-kak-byli-snaty-znamenitye-sceny-sovetskogo-kino/) The working title was \"Skazka o rukovodyashchej Zolushke\" ([The Tale](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-tale) of the Leading Cinderella).[10](https://m.5-tv.ru/tabloid/408458/95-let-bez-eldara-razanova-kak-byli-snaty-znamenitye-sceny-sovetskogo-kino/) The plot of a romance between a boss and a subordinate rests on a real story, though the sources do not identify where it took place or who told it to Ryazanov.[9](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/)\n\n**Filming.** Ryazanov began shooting on 5 September 1976; the first scene filmed was set in the cafeteria of the statistical institution, where the trade-union activist Shura (Lyudmila Ivanova) tells Novoseltsev about Ryzhova's letters.[11](https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/galleries/2026/09/05/1226191-sozdavalsya-sluzhebnii-roman) The letter plot was not invented by the screenwriters; it is based on a real incident.[11](https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/galleries/2026/09/05/1226191-sozdavalsya-sluzhebnii-roman) Ryazanov deliberately made Moscow one of the film's \"characters\": cinematographer Vladimir Nakhabtsev was to capture the capital in different autumn states, from bright sun to gray rain.[11](https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/galleries/2026/09/05/1226191-sozdavalsya-sluzhebnii-roman)\n\n**Casting.** Ryazanov immediately chose Alisa Freindlikh for the role of Kalugina.[3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/) To make her transformation in the second half of the film more obvious, the costume department searched Mosfilm for a deliberately drab outfit, and Nakhabtsev supplied the finishing touch by bringing in his father's old glasses, which Kalugina wears at work.[9](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/) Ryazanov had first wanted Oleg Basilashvili for Novoseltsev, but insisted on casting him as Samokhvalov instead; Basilashvili said he was nothing like the character in real life.[9](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/) In the scene where Samokhvalov shows off his Volga, the car is parked because Basilashvili, who never learned to drive despite lessons taken during the shoot, had crashed into a kiosk during practice.[9](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/)\n\nThe creative team included composer Andrei Petrov, cinematographer Vladimir Nakhabtsev, and production designers Alexander Borisov and Sergei Voronkov.[2](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nThe film premiered on 26 October 1977 and immediately became a distribution leader: within a year nearly 60 million people had seen it, and in 1978 readers of the magazine *Sovetsky Ekran* named it the best film of the year, with Freindlikh and Myagkov named best actors.[6](https://www.vokrug.tv/product/show/sluzhebnyi_roman/) In 1979 it received the RSFSR State Prize named after the Vasilyev brothers, and it remains Ryazanov's highest-grossing film.[5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance) Writing in 1978, the critic V. Bozhovich placed it among the \"viewers' films\" that manage to amuse and move an audience without sacrificing artistic standards.[12](https://psyfactor.org/t/Book_2021_Fedorov_1001_Film.pdf)\n\nThe film has also been read as a document of Soviet everyday life: one study of late-Soviet cinema describes *Office Romance* as a kind of \"encyclopedia\" of the Soviet way of life, noting that the secretary Verochka acts as the office's fashion expert and that her dialogue about boots reflects how fashionable clothing and footwear were scarce goods that had to be \"obtained\".[13](https://localhistory.tou.edu.kz/storage/journals/88.pdf)\n\n**Later versions and restorations.** In 2011 director Sarik Andreasyan made the remake *Office Romance. Our Time*; the critic Andrei Arkhangelsky called it not a continuation but a \"simulation\" on the theme of Ryazanov's comedy.[6](https://www.vokrug.tv/product/show/sluzhebnyi_roman/) • [14](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1600787) Mosfilm carried out a full restoration of picture and sound (the restoration year is given as 2012), released on Blu-ray and re-released theatrically, including a 2022 re-release by Artkino Prokat with a bonus documentary on the film's making.[2](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/) • [15](https://www.close-up.ru/news/detail.php?ID=9065) • [5](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance)\n\nSources differ on the running time: the Cultin database lists 151 minutes, Mosfilm lists 159 minutes, and Kinopoisk lists 2 hours 39 minutes.[1](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman) • [2](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/) • [3](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Служебный роман, сюжет, Cultin.ru](https://cultin.ru/films-sluzhebnyjj-roman)\n2. [Служебный роман, Киностудия «Мосфильм»](https://www.mosfilm.ru/cinema/films/sluzhebnyy-roman/)\n3. [Служебный роман (1977), Кинопоиск](https://www.kinopoisk.ru/film/43869/)\n4. [Служебный роман, SEELRC film summary, Duke University](https://seelrc-iis.trinity.duke.edu/ctf2/summary.aspx?filmID=21)\n5. [Служебный роман, АртКино Прокат](https://artkinoprokat.com/officeromance)\n6. [Служебный роман (1977), Vokrug TV](https://www.vokrug.tv/product/show/sluzhebnyi_roman/)\n7. [Служебный роман, канал «Дом кино»](https://www.domkino.tv/announce/15588)\n8. [Фильм «Служебный роман» (1977), Filmnavi](https://filmnavi.ru/1977/sluzhebnyj-roman)\n9. [Как снимали любимое кино: \"Служебный роман\", Рамблер/кино (Inc-News)](https://kino.rambler.ru/movies/52110220-kak-snimali-lyubimoe-kino-sluzhebnyy-roman/)\n10. [Как были сняты известные сцены из комедий Эльдара Рязанова, 5-tv.ru](https://m.5-tv.ru/tabloid/408458/95-let-bez-eldara-razanova-kak-byli-snaty-znamenitye-sceny-sovetskogo-kino/)\n11. [Как создавался «Служебный роман»: 10 архивных кадров, Ведомости](https://www.vedomosti.ru/media/galleries/2026/09/05/1226191-sozdavalsya-sluzhebnii-roman)\n12. [Федоров А. В. «1001 фильм, который вы должны посмотреть» (2021), psyfactor.org](https://psyfactor.org/t/Book_2021_Fedorov_1001_Film.pdf)\n13. [Советская повседневность в художественном кино, localhistory.tou.edu.kz](https://localhistory.tou.edu.kz/storage/journals/88.pdf)\n14. [Чисто планктонически, Коммерсантъ](https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/1600787)\n15. [«Служебный роман» на Blu-ray, Киновидеообъединение «Крупный план»](https://www.close-up.ru/news/detail.php?ID=9065)\n16. [klassiki.online](https://klassiki.online/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Klassiki_OfficeRomance.pdf)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1970s › Released 1977 to 1979*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Office Romance (Служебный роман) (1977 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Office Romance (Служебный роман) (1977 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Office Romance (Служебный роман) (1977 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/office-romance-1977-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Office Romance is a 1977 Mosfilm two-part comedy by Eldar Ryazanov and Emil Braginsky, based on their play Co-Workers, starring Alisa Freindlikh and Andrey Myagkov; it drew 58.4 million Soviet viewers and won the 1979 RSFSR State Prize." }