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NEW IN TOWN Send This Review to a Friend
About the only thing going for “New in Town” is the timing. With the country concerned about factory closings and losing jobs, the plot concerning people trying to hold onto their jobs has relevance. Too bad it doesn’t also have brains. This hammy romantic comedy drags out cliché after cliché in the setup, in which a corporate woman from Miami is sent to a wintry town in North Dakota to oversee the demise of a food plant. We find Renée Zellweger turning her nose up at the hick locals until she is won over by their oh-so folksy ways.
But the bosses in Miami turn up the pressure to sell the factory, which means it will disappear, and Zellweger as the kind-hearted Lucy Hill rallies the employees to quickly create a new product that will turn things around. Would you believe tapioca?
Meanwhile, after they get off to a hostile start, Lucy has been falling for Ted, a widower with a teen daughter. He’s the local union rep played by Harry Connick, Jr. The story is so corny that one can’t take the romance the least bit seriously. The film, directed by Jonas Elmer from a script by Kenneth Rance and C. Jay Cox, has the tasteless bit of Lucy out hunting with a zipper stuck so that she can’t find a way to pee outdoors while in desperate need. Ted is on hand to help. Union reps have to do everything, it seems.
No need to belabor how dumb this film is. And Zellwger looks pretty unappealing this time around. Others in the cast include J.K. Simmons, Siobhan Fallon Hogan and Frances Conroy. A Lionsgate release.
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