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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Salesrank: 1642
Released: May 26, 2009 |
| Our Price: $11.59 |
| Used Price: $3.67 |
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MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Award-winning actress Renée Zellweger stars as Lucy Hill, a high-powered executive in love with her upscale Miami lifestyle. Seeking to snag a big promotion, Lucy agrees to move to a remote Minnesota town to oversee the restructuring of a blue-collar manufacturing plant. After enduring icy roads, freezing weather and a chilly reception from the locals, she soon warms up to the small town and its people – especially the town’s handsome union representative (Harry Connick, Jr.). What begins as a job assignment becomes the best thing ever to happen to her, in this heartwarming comedy that proves that the warmest people are often in the coldest places.
Description of New In Town (Widescreen Edition):
What defines success? For Miami executive Lucy Hill (Renee Zellweger), it's climbing the corporate ladder, so when her company needs someone to automate and reconfigure a food plant in a rural town in Minnesota, Lucy volunteers figuring the temporary move will lead to a big promotion. Intent on sweeping into town, mechanizing the factory, and reducing the staff by 50 percent, Lucy has no intention of letting anyone or anything stand in her way. Disdain doesn't begin to describe what Lucy feels about the small-town residents and their obsession with scrapbooking, propensity to bring up Jesus in casual conversation, and outdated visions of what comprises an appropriate female role model. Union leader Ted (Harry Connick Jr.), plant manager Stu (J. K. Simmons), and secretary Blanche (Siobhan Fallon) bear the brunt of Lucy's scorn, but even as she focuses on carrying out her business agenda, Lucy inexplicably finds herself drawn to those same inhabitants. As she begins to reexamine what's truly important in her life, personal relationships unexpectedly begin to vie with business success for a spot at the top of her priority list and she begins to consider whether or not these disparate ambitions must by necessity be mutually exclusive of one another. Reminiscent of Fargo with its satiric portrait of simple Mid-Western country folk, New in Town is an engaging film about ambition, self-discovery, and love that offers plenty of laughs, life lessons, and an opportunity for personal reflection. --Tami Horiuchi
New In Town (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
Somewhat predictable, Still very funny 
2009-11-30 - I see elements of the movie Baby Boom in this film. Smart ambitious woman gets stuck in the middle of nowhere and outside her comfort zone. She meets a man who she at first dislikes and then comes to love. The locals aren't that impressed with her either. And on top of that she is forced to create and market a new product in a short time. And both women must survive a long cold winter.
This movie is more about characters. And we know action movies are what sell to the general public these days. No matter how bad they are.
Renee is very funny in this film. She does physical comedy well and also as a very ambitious woman who comes to the Minnesota town of New Ulm to modernize a plant and terminate half of its employees in the process.
She embarrases herself at her first dinner meeting with the local union rep played by Harry Connick jr. She fires the plant manager after being further embarrased by a made up gopher day and when the manager closes the plant on the first day of ice fishing, which turns out to be a state holiday. She can't seem to get her footing with the locals who speak as if they were all from Fargo.
Along the way she comes to appreciate their lifestyle and wants to save their plant when the corporate office in Miami wants to close it. She becomes the hero by finding a new product, marketing it and putting it in store shelves as a big hit. Her secretary's secret tappioca pudding recipe.
The cold winter is as much a character in the film as it was in Grumpy Old Men.
I like this film because it is funny and cute. Just an honest comedy that doesn't pretend to be anything different than what it is.
New In Town 
2009-11-28 - The movie was very slow, not funny at all... The movie lacked romance; no real story line. "Sweet Home Alabama" is everything that you think this movie would be centered around Minnesota, but there was no comparison. I thought it was going to at least be good, but I found it to be a great disappointment and a waste of money.
Really nice movie
2009-11-27 - I didn't know what to expect when I watched this movie. The trailers were not too helpful. I was delightfully surprised. This is a heart warming story about a big city girl who goes to a very small town to get a job done. She ends up learning more about herself than she expected. Rene is charming and Harry is a great rugged guy next door. I don't want to give too much away but..if you like a romantic comedy grounded in a good backstory, you will like this movie.
There is an honesty throughout the entire movie, it is so genuine that you feel it when watching the movie the second time.
Smart and Funny! 
2009-11-25 - A very enjoyable film for the whole family. Very smartly written and laugh-out-loud funny. One of Rene Zellweger's best!
Nothing new in this town...
2009-11-24 - One of those pointless romantic comedies, `New in Town' has absolutely nothing in it that sets it apart from the rest of the pack. The acting is mediocre, at time excruciatingly amateur, and that script is so cookie cutter that it borrows so much from other, better films to create a complete waste of time.
And yet I'm compelled to give this two stars for the mere fact that I did laugh kind of hard a few times.
Lucy Hill is a Miami businesswoman who gets transferred to a small town in Minnesota in order to whip a plant into shape. She is not given a warm welcome, as the townsfolk know with her she brings layoffs, but what starts off rocky soon becomes smooth as Lucy warms up to Ted, the local Union Officer, not to mention Blanche, her secretary. Of course, it can't stay smooth for long, especially once her corporate office makes some abrupt changes in her plans. But, have no worries; like every movie it steals its many scenes from, there is a happy (and very sappy) ending in store for us.
My issue is that nothing here is fresh, exciting or noteworthy.
Except Harry Connick Jr.
I credit every funny scene in this film to Connick Jr., an actor I used to kind of hate but who has lately made me take a double take (his work in 07's `Bug' was extraordinary). He is funny, charming and totally natural here, even when everyone around him is nothing more than an over-emphasized stereotype. He stands out, not just because everyone else is horrible, but because he is BETTER THAN THIS MOVIE.
Zellweger used to be so lovely. Remember when she waded through `Bridget Jones' movies with spunk and sweetened naturalism? Remember when she blew us all away with her beautifully charming breakthrough in `Jerry Maguire'? Remember her sizzle through `Chicago'? WHERE IS THAT GIRL!?!? I miss her. Her she is nothing, truly NOTHING. Her squished face barely registers an emotion through this entire film. In fact, the only scene she nails is the one where she plays drunk. Siobhan Fallon is really nothing but a carbon copy of a `Fargo' character, yet without the intelligence that the Coen brothers brought to their characters. J.K. Simmons is a great character actor, but his accent is so iffy that he really loses points here. I will say that the weight and the beard suit him (he should think about getting fat) but aside from that he was absolutely pointless.
Why does every one of these films containing a diner waitress name her Flo?
Skip this one. Really. Stay away. It's sad, because I really liked Connick Jr.'s performance and want to say "watch this for him" but even he is not worth suffering through the rest of this film for. My wife even said about halfway through; "is this torture for you too?" and the answer was "yes", but I have this thing where I need to finish what I start, even if the only reason is to tear it apart the next day in a review!
