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New in Town (2009)

Director: Jonas Elmer

Time Out rating

Average user rating

6 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

You’ll find no ill will directed towards Renée Zellweger here: she subscribes to a definition of leading-ladydom that dates back to screwball queen Carole Lombard. You can’t imagine Angelina Jolie doing face-plants in the snow, but Zellweger pitches herself gamely. She wriggles around in too-tight outfits and somehow makes her legs stretch a million miles.

But ‘New in Town’ raises serious alarms. A shockingly banal script lends the movie a generic awfulness; you wish Zellweger were in better hands. Foolish mistakes overwhelm in the first 20 minutes alone: would high-powered Miami executive Lucy Hill (Zellweger) seriously arrive in wintry Minnesota wearing heels and no sweater? She’s come to the small town of New Ulm – already introduced in a cringeworthy scene of ‘Fargo’-like accent abuse – to make deep personnel cuts at a corporate-owned factory. But the beer-swilling local union rep, Ted (Harry Connick Jr), might have something to say about that. Also, he’s a widower.

These are the conventions of romantic comedy. But must they be doled out so strenuously and with zero irony? Lucy comes to smile at the town’s religiosity; she performs a heroic makeover on Ted’s teenage daughter and proves herself scrappy when her board insists on rough tactics. But as a fantasy of economic salvation, this feels especially phony. Jokes about layoffs just aren’t going to wring many laughs these days.

Author: Joshua Rothkopf

Time Out London Issue 2010, 26 Feb - 4 Mar, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Midwesty said...

Posted on Mar 08 2010 00:04 The Minnesotan accents (and the same in the movie Fargo) were over the top. Jokes fall flat. And for someone as sucessful and intelligent as the main character, Lucy, she would have been smart enough to bring warmer wear.
A boringly predicatble plot. While there is character development, it's the sme old hat. Is Lucy not allowed to keep her independence? Is she supposed to roll over and fall in love with the man who she clashed with so horribly in the beginning?

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Kyle Fairchild said...

Posted on Mar 01 2010 09:20 Painful is the word. First of all, the dialect coach should be put up against the wall. What were the instructions? All you have to do to speak Minnesotan is talk from the front of your mouth and throw in a 'Ya sure' every now and then? It's Dick van Dyke (cockney accent in Mary Poppins) goes to Minnesota. Fargo was a bit over the top but at least efforts were made to make it sound authentic. The vacuous and far-fetched plots and dialogue isn't worth mentioning... This is definitely a finalist in my worst films ever category.

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RJM said...

Posted on Mar 06 2009 17:40 A laugh-free 97 minutes. Clunking, derivative and inept. Poor Zellweger looked ancient, Connick Junior's character was just shy of psychopathic. Her mid-film conversion was handled clumsily. The Fargo-esque accents were just embarrassing. New In Town? Get out of town!

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Cappybear said...

Posted on Mar 05 2009 00:14 The first ten minutes or so were pretty awful, but stick with it because it does get better. The plot is utterly predictable and the film runs like a series of episodes rather than a coherent whole, but it's saved by pleasing performances and a moderately funny script. Hell, it ain't trying to be Citizen Kane. A nice little movie.

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spongebob said...

Posted on Mar 02 2009 16:51 I might b going 2 c this is it good???????

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CJB said...

Posted on Mar 01 2009 00:22 Saw this last night and laughed the whole way through. It's a lovely, funny movie. Don't think too hard about it, of course it's improbable, just sit back and ENJOY!!

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