New In Town – Blu-ray Review

Ironically, ‘New in Town’ is impossibly stale, a creaky fish-out-of-water rom-com headlined by Renee Zellweger that sees her corporate workaholic spinster find a new understanding of life and love amongst small-town caricatures.

One has to wonder what anyone saw in this painfully antiquated material which is probably why Danish newcomer, Jonas Elmer, was selected to direct. He didn’t know any better. At the very least, Harry Connick Jr. makes an appealing romantic interest if only because he’s the only one in the film to undersell it – everyone else seems straight out of a failed sitcom.

Plot is almost non-existent but what we get finds Lucy Hill (Zellweger), a high-level Miami corp. exec getting an assignment to restructure a manufacturing plant in small town, Minnesota. Do we get the scene where the skirt-laden Miami gal cruises out into the frigid Minnesota weather and finds it…y’know, cold? Yes we do. But the weather is only the first of many elements to not meet her expectations as she makes her rounds among the small-town populace starting off with her assistant Blanche (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), a scrap-book obsessed gossiper, the bearded, unimpressed Stu (J.K. Simmons) who runs the plant and finally Ted (Harry Connick Jr.) who she, of course, forms an antagonistic relationship with right away not knowing that he’s the local union rep. But just when she has proven herself to the townspeople and Ted, she gets a call from corporate that they need to shut the plant down. This upsets everybody, natch, but Lucy just might have a plan to save the plant, and as a result the town…and just possibly the world. My wife and I have formulated a list of actors/actresses that we don’t like very much. This list is purely subjective and generally consists of people that just rub us the wrong way. It isn’t even necessarily dependent on talent, looks or lack thereof but more a gut instinct. This list can even change with people being added and dropped weekly but can you guess who has been on my list for a while? Yep, that would be one Renee Zellweger, an actress that has annoyed me in almost everything she’s done with a few exceptions (‘Jerry Maguire’, ‘Appaloosa’ and, urm, ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’). Her worst performances are particularly shrill and irritating i.e. ‘Cold Mountain’ and with the opening scenes of this movie, she has topped herself in the strident category.

That being said, my wife responded to this film as a perfectly acceptable low-level chick flick, probably the female equivalent of a John Cena film for us guys but, if like me, you’re not a huge fan of the ‘weger, stay away from this movie like the plague. The film is presented with a 1.78:1 1080p encode that’s serviceable considering the content. We mostly get washed-out Fargoesque locations without any of the fancy camerawork or wide shots that would establish some depth. The English 7.1 DTS HD Master Audio is also fine if completely unnecessary. Special Features consist of a Picture in Picture Cast and Crew commentary that notably doesn’t include Zellweger or Harry Connick Jr., ‘Deleted Scenes’, a Making of, and two featurettes: the ‘Folk Art of Scrapbooking’ and ‘Pudding’s Delicious Role in New in Town’. A rental for only the most loyal of romantic comedy aficionados or fans (God help) of Renee Zellweger might be in order but I can safely recommend passing for almost everybody else. Cold weather and funny accents can only take a film so far.