- Film Review
- Reviewed By Trevor Johnston
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1 out of 5
Even Renée Zellweger in full-on perky mode can't save this terminally unappealing romantic comedy. She plays a high-powered corporate executive who's dispatched from Miami to deepest Minnesota with instructions to downsize a newly acquired dairy-products factory. Naturally, she finds the subzero temperatures, weirdly strangulated vowels and general tweeness of the place jarring at first, but it's not long before she warms to the hardy locals' homespun ways - and especially pick-up driving, beer-drinkin', plaid-wearin' widower Harry Connick Jr. It may adhere to a well-worn formula, but the yawning lack of wit, inspiration or emotional engagement is so pronounced it's quite startling. "Fish out of water" usefully describes any story where a character is thrust into a testing new environment: it's especially apt as New in Town flaps around helplessly before expiring completely.
Plot Summary
Romantic comedy starring Renée Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. High-powered executive Lucy Hill is sent from her luxurious Miami base to oversee the "restructuring" of a factory in a small Minnesota town. She gets a frosty reception from the locals, particularly union boss Ted Mitchell, but then relations begin the pair begin to thaw.
Cast and crew
Cast
- Lucy Hill
- Renée Zellweger
- Ted Mitchell
- Harry Connick Jr
- Stu Kopenhafer
- J K Simmons
- Blanche Gunderson
- Siobhan Fallon
- Lars Ulstead
- Mike O'Brien
- Trudy Van Uuden
- Frances Conroy
- Bobbie Mitchell
- Ferron Guerreiro
- Bob Deitmar
- James Durham
- Donald Arling
- Robert Small
Crew
- Director
- Jonas Elmer
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