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Eldar Riazanov has made a number of comedies, including the highly successful Watch That Car, shown at an earlier Festival. An Office Affair is set in a statistical office in Moscow.The head of the office is a woman statistician, Director Kalugina, who seems to have few interests outside her work.
She insists on rules being followed to the letter and pays little attention to the feelings of her subordinates. She has never been married and it appears that she never will be. But the senior statistician in the office, Anatoly, gradually becomes involved with the Director.
He is a timid and self-effacing man, whose wife has left him, and he is bringing up two children single-handed. He is always in a hurry, and his work suffers. Ludmila Kalugina thinks of him as a mediocre worker who cannot be relied upon, while Anatoly fears and hates her. But in the world of office comedy, such a relationship is bound to change.
The film also gives an insight into the individual peculiarities of a whole host of Anatoly's colleagues, and through many amusing situations, creates a penetrating study of life in a large government office in Russia.