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Review - New In Town

March 24th 2009 08:35

New In Town stars Renee Zellweger as Lucy Hill, a single career woman looking to become a Vice President at her Miami based firm. Before that will occur she must fly to the small town of New Ulm in Minnesota in order to restructure and downsize the local plant. Like a fish out of water, she arrives unprepared for the cold winter and unbeknownst to her, the locals are already prepared for her to fail before she has set foot in the town.

Siobhan Fallon Hogan, last seen in Baby Mama as a birthing teacher, is amusing as tapioca pudding and scrapbooker queen Blanche Gunderson - possibly a distant relation to Marge Gunderson from Fargo, Minnesota?! As Lucy's secretary, she tries to do right by organising for her to meet the local Union Representative over a casual dinner of meat loaf prior to Lucy's first day at the office. The local representative, Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jnr), turns out to be a bearded, beer guzzling, pick-up truck driver who clashes with Lucy on all levels. Of course as all good romantic comedies go, we know that they will ultimately end up together and we just have to sit back and wait for it to occur.

Also getting off on the wrong foot with the Plant Manager Stu Kopenhafer (JK Simmons), Lucy dismisses him after he attempts to humiliate her with a fake holiday, namely "Gopher Day". Problems ensue and Lucy tries to retreat back to the shelter of Miami ending up in a snow drift only to be saved by the one man she detests, Ted.

As the film develops, Lucy warms to the characters of the town and ultimately is unprepared for her firm's overall decision - namely to close down the plant. She rallies the citizens together to come up with a plan to possibly save the plant (which will of course help her to win over her man). The premise is good, as romantic comedies go, but unfortunately this one is a little light on the romance and the laughs. Written by Ken Rance and C. Jay Cox (Sweet Home Alabama), the script rarely gathers a chuckle and as such we are treated with nipple jokes, accidental shootings and bad perms.

Directed by Jonas Elmer, the Danish born director gives us no surprises with his handling of the script. Unfortunately Lucy is just not as tough as she should be character wise and the major personality shift which is meant to occur therefore falls flat. The realisation from single minded career woman to community hero is not felt and we see no real progression in terms of character development.

Overall it has some fun characters including a small role by Six Feet Under's Frances Conroy and of course, she does get her guy in the end.

Voyage Review: 2.5/5

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Posted By: Michelle Sweeney - Category: Comedy

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