"New in Town" (2009) - Movie Review

There appears a timeless opportunity for “New in Town” to be a little bit better film than its over all scathingly low very early in. In her very first night in the small town of New Ulm in Minnesota, city girl Lucy Hill (Renée Zellweger) dines at her new secretary’s home. When she gets into the debate with another guest Ted (Harry Connick Jr.) regarding city life, globalization and modern woman, there is a significant difference in them. If only it was a sensible film it would have grabbed it and went along with this two characters to have more conversations on the reality. Instead it dishes out the formula again in excruciating details of fine tuned nature to irritate and annoy us.

In a quest to climb that career ladder, Lucy moves from the happening warm city of Miami to the reeking cold of the north in the town of New Ulm to manage a plant. One of her primary objectives is to lay off a lot of the workers and that would mean only one thing. She would in the end will put everything from her power to fight for them whom she dislikes initially. The people dutifully dislikes her too. That is something every one knows yet it is the way they make fool out of Lucy and her falling comes off as the dumbest character invented in romantic films. That ridicules the movie watchers.

Lucy supposedly is the cornerstone of the go getters management people. Does that mean she does not know how to dress for the place she is going in? She finely dresses in the executive attire with high heels and wanders freely as if the cold cannot do anything at all. Then she stumbles, hits the door, shivers helplessly in the cold and tries to attempt on the physical humour going in dusts. Director Jonas Elmer and many others who venture upon into the genre of romantic comedy follow booklet of steps to follow. And honestly it seems to work on the audience. In the thirty to forty people seated, I could hear ten people constantly giggling and falling in laughter when Zellweger’s pathetic display of supposed humour comes in. It is devastating.

Of course Lucy is treated badly and she gives it back too. What bothered me most is how she is made into a character so judgmentally stereotypic by the writers Ken Rance and C. Jay Cox. It is as if she woke up yesterday in the dawn of this futuristic world and she has no clue about how the rest of the world functions. I could grasp that going into a new place and the people would be an unexpected and unpredictable events but you have an idea and you get accustomed to the surroundings. You do not flip around to change your character but you know the quibble of details to get around the place and people. Lucy is a character developed in a paper and she stays there in badly formed words. She does not become flesh and blood to ooze the very little emotions required.

And seeing J.K. Simmons as the old and traditional hardened American worker Stu, it is both appreciating and sad. He is the only convincing character in the film staying true and not over stating the fact. His character is mean to Lucy but brings a class of humour to it. You would object his actions but would laugh for his facial expressions and the comments he says. It is saddening that he has to be in a film of hollow hope.

What is this craze to stream line in to an orderly story telling and people exactly knowing the pattern go about forgiving and over looking the badness of these films? The same goes for the blockbuster action wherein there is a preparation for the worst and go with the blind attitude of mindless entertainment. Why cannot there be a stance in being honest about what one feels about films? Is that so much of an escapist mood to be put upon to have a good time and forget the art? I would not be popping up these questions towards the audience but seeing how the others reacted to this abysmal display, I was seriously concerned of where the art is being taken.

“New in Town” and many others of similar nature becomes stains of how emotions can be manipulated in worst way possible in coming movies. It does not give any insight on the characters other than being the stereotypes in the start and then become the stereotypes of a formula romantic comedy screenplay. Except that thirty second sharing of Lucy and Ted, there is nothing original, entertaining, truthful and funny about “New in Town”.