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New in TownClaudia PuigTo say that New in Town is the worst movie of this fledgling year is to damn it with faint praise. It may be one of the worst movies of any year. Not content to be merely inane and predictable, it is downright insulting, humorlessly deriding those who choose to live in rural America, labor in factories or have a strong Christian faith. It treats this giant swath of Americans as foolish, if lovable, buffoons, essentially insulting viewers by making the audience unwitting co-conspirators simply by watching this dreck. It follows a particularly abhorrent Hollywood formula: Ridicule the friendly, rural folks, show how stupid they are, then by the end, place their small-town values and inherent decency on a pedestal. Where the Coen brothers' darkly droll 1996 Fargo disarmingly mocked residents in and around Minnesota, New in Town may inspire the entire state to file a class-action defamation suit. Beyond the indignities it heaps on rural Minnesotans, there's the matter of its glaring lack of humor and originality. As dunderheaded as the folks of New Ulm, Minn., are portrayed, Lucy, the ambitious, self-absorbed executive played awkwardly by Renee Zellweger, comes off even worse. She's a citified clich??-and-a-half. The materialistic Miami corporate manager is dispatched to small-town Minnesota to re-structure a manufacturing plant by implementing new procedures and firing workers. She's not only coldhearted, she's also clueless. Lucy appears to have traveled to Minnesota in the dead of winter without a warm coat and insists upon wearing stilettos in the snow. But, of course, anyone who has ever seen a movie knows this is merely a device for her to slip and slide hilariously as she struggles with her designer luggage on the icy airport walkways. It's funny every time, ain't it? She is quickly and inexplicably embraced by the locals. Her ultra-friendly secretary, Blanche (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), decides to set up the single Lucy with the town's apparently only single man, Ted (Harry Connick Jr.). Ted and Lucy hate each other from the start. But, wouldn't you know it? They are forced to work together because he's the local union leader. Anyone who has ever watched a rom-com knows, though, that if a man and woman initially hate each other, they must fall for each other before the movie's over. Along the way, we have to endure a host of gags involving public drunkenness, more inappropriate clothing jokes and a scene in which Connick is shot in the buttocks. (Where's Forrest Gump when you need him?) On top of it all, New in Town far exceeds the number of times the word "tapioca" should be uttered in a movie. Think of it as the movie equivalent of rancid tapioca: a lumpy slop of bad taste. ?? Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. |
