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New in Town (2009)

Director: Jonas Elmer

Time Out rating

Average user rating

4 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 2009-02-24 11:51:45

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

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User reviews of this film

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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