New in Town *

Director: Jonas Elmer
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr.
J.K. Simmons, Siobhan Fallon, Frances Conroy

Renée Zellweger plays Lucy, a-curiously untanned- Miami executive, who gets sent by her company to run a plant in Minnesota.
Being from Miami, she's obviously not prepared to embrace a small town and the film gives path so that her cold cold heart will melt with the help of the Jesus loving, tapioca eating, folks from the joyous Minnesota.
Anyone watching this film will be offended by at least two things: first the utter lack of originality displayed in the screenplay.
It's obvious that Lucy will become good and learn to love the townsfolk including the hunky union leader (who else but Connick Jr.?) and the nosy secretary (Fallon).
And because of this not a single actor in the film puts some effort into their characters. Simmons, who even looks uninterested, rehashes his usual lovable smartass role from "Juno" and "Spider-Man", Connick Jr. is so bland that you wonder who refused his role so that he ended up taking over and Zellweger who is usually charming and cute is so icy and detached that nothing in the film ever really makes you like her.
In fact absolutely no character in the movie is likeable!
Then comes the fact that the entire movie is so disrespectful of Minnesota that nobody will feel comfortable with the clichés and eventual Capra-esque realizations we're supposed to have with it.
"Fargo" wasn't exactly reverential of Minnesota, but the Coens knew what they were doing, director Elmer here however tries to emulate them and especially with Fallon's character- whose last name is Gunderson-the film proves that there is a fine line between the sublime and the purely ridiculous.