When in Rome

Much like this month's other romantic comedy release, Leap Year, When In Rome is a perfectly standard example of the genre that gets a little extra mileage out of its lead stars. In this case, it's Kristen Bell (of TV's Veronica Mars) and Josh Duhamel (from the Transformers films). They both bring a certain down to earth charm, which is much needed in this film, as it's humor is often so broad that it resembles a live action cartoon, and not in a good way. With all the goofiness surrounding these two likable performances, I sometimes found myself wishing they were falling in love in a different movie.

The plot is strictly by the numbers, which is to be expected. Kristen Bell plays Beth, a museum curator who is married to her work, and doesn't have time for a relationship ever since her heart was broken in her last one. Early on in the film, she's approached by her little sister (Alexis Dziena), who is getting married in Rome after a brief whirlwind love affair. Beth is forced to drop everything and fly off to Italy to attend the wedding, where she meets a man named Nick (Josh Duhamel), who despite being highly accident prone and a magnet for pratfalls, could be the guy she's looking for. Just when Beth is about to make her move to get closer to him, she sees Nick seemingly being intimate with another woman. We obviously know it's not what it looks like, and the whole situation could be resolved if one of the characters just said a few words. But, Beth takes it the wrong way, gets drunk, and goes wading in the water in Rome's famous "Fountain of Love". There's a superstition that if you remove a coin that was thrown into the fountain, the person who tossed that coin will fall in love with you. Beth, in her drunken haze, removes four coins (and a poker chip), and when she returns home to New York, she suddenly finds herself stalked by four total strangers who seem infatuated with her, and won't leave until they profess their love to her.

The fact that these four people who tossed the coins into the fountain in Italy all just happen to live in New York and within walking distance to Beth is hard to swallow, but I digress. The men who start chasing after and following Beth everywhere she goes includes an insane artist with a foot fetish (Will Arnett), a vain and egotistical male model (Dax Shepard), a street magician who is obviously supposed to be a parody of stunt illusionist Criss Angel (Jon Heder), and a middle aged sausage tycoon (Danny DeVito). These characters can sometimes be funny (especially Heder), but they often come across as creepy, as a lot of the things they do to get closer to Beth would probably lead to them being arrested in real life, or at least a restraining order or two. And what of the poker chip she picked up from the fountain? Beth assumes that it belongs to Nick, since he starts calling as soon as she returns home, and seems genuinely interested in her. He explains the situation with the other woman that night, but she still thinks he's only after her because of the magic from the fountain. But then she starts to warm up to him the more time they spend together.

Are they destined to be together? Is it the magic of the fountain that is making Nick fall in love, or is it real? And if it is the magic, is it right for Beth to take advantage of it? These are the kind of questions you can only get away with asking in a movie like When in Rome. It's featherweight, it's silly, and it's not exactly that memorable. But it has to be said that the performances of Bell and Duhamel go a long way. The characters are thinly written, but their on screen chemistry and individual performances actually make us want to see them get together. I was grateful for this, as the film itself has very little to offer. While I chuckled at some of the more offbeat moments of humor (including an early scene concerning a very stubborn vase that refuses to shatter), the jokes can sometimes gets a little too broad, especially concerning the four obsessed suitors who start following Beth around everywhere. That, or the scenes have disappointing payoffs, such as a sequence where Nick takes Beth to dinner at a bizarre restaurant where it's pitch black, and the servers wear night vision goggles. There's a lot that could have been done with this scene, but the script goes for the predictable gags.

Outside of the charm of the two leads, there's not a lot that stands out. Director Mark Steven Johnson (Ghost Rider) and writers David Diamond and David Weissman (Old Dogs) go the predictable route, right down to the casting. Beth has some supportive best friends, who look and act like the best friends from other romantic comedies. The icy boss at Beth's job is played by Anjelica Huston, who specializes in these kind of roles whenever she's cashing a paycheck in a movie. Even the Rome settings have been swiped from other romantic movies, and seem to be staged the same way. Even if we feel like we've seen it all before, at least the movie is never boring. And the whole thing has a breezy tone that keeps the experience of watching it as painless as possible, no matter how generic it sometimes gets.

Can you tell that I'm fishing for complements here? That's because like almost every other January release this year, When in Rome is harmless and inoffensive, but not memorable in the slightest. It will work as a date movie, but that's about it. For many, I'm guessing, that will be enough.

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