New in Town takes the spirited, sexy, smart-talking lead that has served Hollywood so well in countless romances from, say, Rita Hayworth in Gilda to Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, churns her up, and spits her out as a total bitch. In heels, of course.
Miami businesswoman Lucy Hill (Renée Zellweger) is neither spunky nor graceful nor gloriously brash. With her frozen heart, squidgey face and binding power suit, one can’t really expect too much from her in the way of charm. Rather, she can close a plant (and collapse the economy of a town) without giving the matter a second thought. Unfortunately for Lucy, marketing wants to see if it can turn out a new product before shutting down said blue-collar town completely, so Lucy is sent to New Ulm, Minnesota to reconfigure the factory.
With a population of 13,000, New Ulm is a place where everyone shops at Northern Reflections and talks funny — lots of “don’tcha knows” and “thank you kindlys.” They scrapbook, they gossip and they get a holiday on, as Lucy’s overly friendly secretary Blanche Gunderson (Siobahn Fallon Hogan) puts it, the first day “the lake’s froze e-nuff to drive on.” Lucy thinks she’s in hell — frozen over, but still hell.
The filmmakers poke fun at these winter-ready folks. While they’d probably be making the same jokes if they set the film north of the 49th parallel (it was, in fact, filmed around Winnipeg), some of the gags are worth a chuckle, like when Joan explains tinnitus by demo-ing the high-pitched buzzing noise that’s inflicted on the sufferer. Most of the jokes fall flat, though.
Eventually, the frozen Whos down in New Ulm melt Lucy’s heart (ironic, non?), which grows three sizes as the whole town sings “O Come All Ye Faithful” around the Christmas tree. Suddenly, Lucy remembers how her dad was a maintenance guy in a factory just like New Ulm’s, and with Zellweger freshly un-bitchified, she sets about saving the plant instead of gunning for its closure. In the process, she falls in love with lumberjack-esque fireman Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jr.) after getting over the obligatory hate-at-first-sight setup.
New in Town’s biggest problem is its bizarre need to present Zellweger’s character as not merely sassy but downright unlikable. Even though she’s a better person in Connick Jr.’s arms, it’s still too dramatic a shift to see this chilled southerner consider giving up her metaphorically empty house in warm, beautiful Miami for a life of winter boots and parkas.
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