New In Town

Renee Zellweger stars as Lucy – an aggressive, corporate ladder climbing businesswoman from Miami who will stop at nothing to become Vice President at her company. Opportunity knocks when the corporation decides it wants to reconfigure its factory in the Southeastern Minnesota town of New Ulm in order to make a new product. Unfortunately, the plan comes along with the task of laying off half of the work force, which means Lucy will have to battle the cold, the workers, the townspeople and the sexy union leader, Ted (Harry Connick, Jr.).

Will Lucy be able to pull it off?

Will she find true love with Ted?

Can she find a way to fit in?

Does she want to?

New In Town is a comforting movie, but nothing original. Writers Ken Vance and C. Jay Cox don’t provide any amazing or captivating dialogue, so director Jonas Elmer is forced constantly to inject music to fill time and describe what is happening on the screen, since the writers don’t seem to be interested in putting the words in the characters’ mouths.

Then, Vance and Cox make it perfectly clear Ted and Lucy are supposed to fall in love because they hate one another and the inevitable theory that opposites attract will come into play (which is a bunch of bull. I am the complete opposite of many women who do not want to date me. It just doesn’t work that way, unless you look like Harry Connick Jr.).

Finally, most of the comedy revolves around Lucy’s status as the fish out of water who doesn’t belong in this town (there is Miami Dolphin joke in there somewhere, but dolphins are not fish). Some of it is hilarious. Some of it is obvious. Most of it will, at the very least, make you giggle, so New In Town has something going for it, even if this northern town and many of its inhabitants are beyond cliché and silly (I wonder if the people of New Ulm will find their portrayal funny or realistic, especially after the movie was filmed in Canada).

New In Town has enough warmth and sweetness to keep most of the audience interested, but not enough to make this the must see movie of the week, especially if you are not a Zellweger fan.

New In Town is rated PG for brief strong language.