Movie Review - 'New in Town'

New in Town Starring Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick, Jr., and Siobhan Fallon Hogan Directed by Jonas Elmer Rated PG

Cutesy and corny but not convincing, New in Town treads old ground in a familiar way. There's nothing about it that you have to see, and shouldn't that be the point of all this? The movie is banking on one thing: You love Renée Zellweger. If you don't, there's no backup plan. And Zellweger is a commodity of sorts, although not in the demand she was post-Bridget Jones, so it's understandable that a producer or a movie studio would want to build a movie around her. But shouldn't there be a movie as the final result? New in Town is a very loose collection of points on a curve: A big city girl moves to a small town in Minnesota for work, isn't like everyone else, meets a guy, and then has to make a big decision. Appropriately, the women in this small town spend their time scrapbooking, because New in Town just takes better memories from other occasions and sticks them all in this cheesy packing, complete with goofy captions. Were it not for the fact that this is so derivative, it might have had a little bit of promise. Point her in the right direction, and Zellweger can deliver. She's done it repeatedly. Give her a bad script, and it's garbage in, garbage out. The reason for that is she's not a great character on her own. If you put a bad script in front of Johnny Depp, you'll still get something interesting. But Zellweger is, more often than not, a variation on Renee Zellweger. There's nothing wrong with that...unless your movie has holes. This is one of the better leading roles Harry Connick has landed, however. Why he has never been more invested in this half of his career, I'll never know. He's versatile, smart, and charming on screen, like Matthew McConaughy, only versatile, smart, and charming on screen. And together, Zellweger and Connick have something. It's just a spark, not Dick and Liz or McQueen and McGraw, but New in Town doesn't know what to do with what it has, so the borderline chemistry just sits there. The most grating aspect about the movie isn't how it fails its two stars but rather what it lets a supporting player get away it. You have seen Siobhan Fallon Hogan countless times in movies and on TV. She was an SNL castmember back in 1991. Here, she plays a proud Minnesotan named Blanche...Gunderson. It's probably a very common name in L'Étoile du Nord, but there should only be one Gunderson woman from Minnesota. Sorry, New in Town, that's Marge's turf. The "you betcha"s are in full flower, too, and the effect doesn't do the movie any favors. Speaking of favors, it's about time Zellweger called in a few, just to see if she can land a movie worth the price of admission anytime soon.

Comments

[hcb]

I can't explain to Zellweger to you, me, or anybody else, but I do think she was pretty interesting in The Whole Wide World, Empire Records, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation

[musicisall]

i like most of movies she's in
musicisall