Dead on arrival
New in Town / Yes, Virginia, there is a Romantic Comedy genre. As long as the human heart yearns for romantic love, the sweeping embrace of a kewpie doll wearing hair extensions or a many-shouldered priapic jock who’s real sweet beneath the bluster, we will seek out a well-told, funny movie limning the comic turns of courtship and conquest.
Well, New in Town ain’t it.
For one thing, it isn’t new but a patchwork of earlier movie hits in and out of the genre. A dash of Fargo, a dollop of The Devil Wears Prada, a marbling of The Pajama Game and a dessert topping of River City and even Mayberry. This derivative dish is served lukewarm, the tale of a tough Big City gal (vinegary Renée Zellweger and a small-town eligible widower (Harry Connick Jr. sans piano) who at first hate each other—but then guess what. Just watch the clichés fly,
Zellweger (as hard-nosed exec Lucy Hill) wings into New Ulm, Minnesota, or as close as airlines fly, to oversee the downsizing of the town’s food-products factory, much to the consternation of the plant’s union honcho Ted Mitchell (blow-dried and rugged Connick). Whatever in the world will happen?
Having recently been caught on revealing too much about the endings of movies he reviews, this critic will remain silent about New in Town. This new-found restraint is actually occasioned by default: about three-quarters of the way through this made-by-committee rom-com your (usually faithful) film scribe fell asleep (there, I’ve said it).
What, you exclaim, how can you give an opinion of a movie all of which you haven’t seen?
In the very particular case of almost-laughless New in Town, sleep is an opinion. Auwe.
Writer’s Note: Three quite good recent romantic-comedy/dramas are available on DVDs. Try Punch-Drunk Love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and last year’s Once.
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