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The first movie of 2009 to go toe to toe with the looming
financial crisis and those who suffer its effects most -
the increasingly discarded workingclass - New In Town ironically
has more to say about how that crisis impacts the masses
of people in this country, than the commercial media. Which
on the contrary, only seems to identify with the plight
of CEOs who must resign themselves to one less Mercedes
in their corporate fleets this year. And though flawed in
a number of ways during takeoff, the immensely labor-friendly
story irons out many of the dramatic kinks as it coasts
along to the inspiring finish line.***
Renee Zellweger is Lucy, a take no prisoners Miami
executive who toughens up to play with the corporate good
old boys club who seem to merely tolerate having her around
as a kind of managerial second class citizen. So when a
rep from the company is needed to head out to downsize one
of their failing plants in deep freeze rural Minnesota -
and like right now - Lucy gets the odd man out treatment.
And mainly because the con-sensus of the conspiring suits,
is that she's a single woman who doesn't really need to
bother about trifles like the approaching holiday season.***
Upon her arrival, not only does Lucy find herself have
to contend with being thrust into the position of villain
fall guy for the company when getting orders to shut the
plant down, but there's also the daily blizzards and accom
panying embarrassing see-through frozen nipples morphed
into, well, human icicles, and a typical small town where
there's no such thing as a personal question. Not to mention
a local population that turns against her as she's poised
to eliminate away their collective livelihoods.***
There's also the feisty factory union leader and widower,
Ted (Harry Connick Jr.), who squares off against Lucy in
class warfare over the dinner table. And after mockingly
exchanging city versus country, red state/blue state caricatures
about one another, Ted rants angrily against the robber
barons of capitalism while she smugly extols the self-made
man. A more than surprising heated sociopolitical conversation
that could have leaped out of a dramatic ideological debate
in a Ken Loach movie about mass popular uprising.***
And despite the chilly turf, Lucy, a kind of borderline
but thankfully not quite dragon lady in distress, eventually
warms up to these country folk and their cause, and the
hunky union guy too. But to director Jonas Elmer's credit,
he sets up the conventional love story as secondary to the
triumphant class conscious solidarity of blue collar stiffs
who take over their factory. And signify that workers know
a thing or two themselves, about fixing a badly broken economic
system.***
Whether it's a case of bad judgment in promoting stereotypes
of often simple minded white country bumpkins with grating
accents on the part of the African American director who
should know better about caricaturing, or just actors who
never quite got the knack of speaking in that idiom, Elmer
seems to relax as the narrative moves along.***
And by the time the characters tone down the accents
and Lucy switches off for a bit from spiked heels to snow
boots, the locals in turn settle into more authentic and
respectful personalities.***
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