When in Rome

Of all the types of films around one genre that has the tendency towards the predictable the romantic comedy is way up on the list. There are almost always three well established acts to these stories; ‘Boy Meets Girl’, ‘Boy loses Girl’ and finally ‘Happily ever after’ each act mat demonstrate some glimmer of originality in meeting its functional requirements but mostly any member of the audience who has seen a few such flick cam mouth most of the dialogue even if it their first time watching a particular instance of this genre. This may lead some to wonder why this format not only persists but remains exceptionally popular as demonstrated by the constant flow of new rom-coms being released. Romantic comedies are the cotton candy of cinema. There is really little more than fluff present with absolutely no nutritional value but its fun. A lot of this has to do with casting the all important leads. The male lead is always ruggedly handsome to appeal to the ladies but also the type of guy that the men watch would like to see a game and have a few beers with. The actress in the center position is almost always not only beautiful but more importantly cute. Most actresses that have been dubbed ‘America’s sweetheart’ established a sizable portion of their careers in this sort of flick. This phenomenon has been observable in movies from Doris Day to Sandra Bullock. These actresses consistently manager to pull in date night audiences often providing better box office than critical acclaim. One example of this effect in a recent film can be found in the light hearted flick ‘When in Rome’. Admittedly it is not a great example of the genre but it does achieve the goals typically set for this type of film. It is easy going fun that doesn’t require a whole lot of thought to follow but holds together solely by means of a highly likeable cast. It is also fairly family friendly sporting a Disney logo and PG-13 rating.

This film may seem like a departure for director Mark Steven Johnson. His previous work was in directing and scripting more action oriented movies such as ‘Daredevil’, Elektra’ and ‘Ghost Rider’. Each of these films has two things in common; they were based on comic books and they contained a romance central to the telling of the story. For this flick he relegated the scripting to David Diamond and David Weissman. Previously they collaborated on stories more on the family comedy vein including ‘Evolution’, ‘Minutemen’, ‘The Family Man’ and the much lamented ‘Old Dogs’. In several cases there the casting included actors not really known for their humorous roles. Of the two leads here, Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel Ms Bell has a strongly established track record in comedy with ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall’ and the musical remake of ‘’Reefer Madness’. On the other hand Duhamel is well known to guys with the ‘Transformers’ movies and the glitzy television series, ‘Las Vegas’. These actors provided a means to broaden out the perspective audience helping the film open in third place and perform respectably in the box office. With a film like this there is an understood permission to introduce magic as a major plot point. This harkens back to the first romantic stories most of us encounter; fairy tales. In this instance Beth (Bell) finds herself on the wrong end of magic ritual namely tossing coins in a fountain to find true love.

Beth is a very successful young woman lining in New York City with her dream job of art curator at the prestigious Guggenheim Museum. It took a lot of hard work to get to this position in her career which had the expected collateral damage of sacrificing any hope of a romantic relationship. Beth is starting to feel the effects of this decision which is greatly intensified when she has to fly to Rome foe the impromptu wedding of her younger sister Joan (Alexis Dziena). While there Beth passes the famous ‘Fountain of Love’ but instead of tossing a coin in she removes several. While the magic old the fountain normally brings love for the one tossing a coin it reverses to what amounts to a curse as the hapless men who tossed the purloined coins now are enamored of Beth and set on pursuing her in order to win her love. yes this is light weight even silly for a premise but just try to recall a plot in this genre over the last decade or so that made more sense. The potential suitors give the required craziness to the film; Street magician Lance (Jon Heder), Tony (Will Arnett) an aspiring artist, Al (Danny DeVito) who feel there is a sausage suitable to express any feeling Dale (Dax Shepard) a narcissistic male model and finally the only normal one Nick, reporter and best man (Josh Duhamel) who truly loves her even without a spell. There has to be some other conflict to complicate matters which comes in the form of Beth’s demanding boss, Celeste (Anjelica Huston) who is just waiting for Beth to fail in setting up a huge event. Beth’s scurrying around with that task while attempting to avoid the bizarre group of men chasing her.

Much of the humor contained here is slapstick antics and Bell does a reasonably good job in pulling off this aspect of the production. For a pretty girl she is not afraid of contorting her facial features to achieve a laugh or two. Duhamel tries his best but is unable to establish more than a modicum of chemistry with his leading lady and should consider sticking to action flicks. The other actors in the film are more episodic in their performances avoiding over exposure or pushing their bits too far. The direction is straight forward not making the most out of the cities featured here; New York and Rome. The Blu-ray release has the usual extras such as bloopers, alternate beginning and ending and a featurette.

Posted 06/06/2010