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BY MAGGIE SCOTT
It may not be the tonic economic-meltdown-weary Americans are longing for, but the new romantic comedy, “New In Town” tries hard to raise the spirits of working men and women terrified of losing their jobs.

The trouble is, it’s a story whose time has come and gone; more in tune with the early years of the slow but steady decimation of America’s industrial base, when there was still hope that the average Joe could fight back and that dire warnings might be heeded.

In the light of the perfect wave of annihilating forces wiping out businesses and work today, this chipper tale of a small factory adapting to and prevailing against a corporation’s plans to pull the plug seems like a quaint pipe dream.

In New Ulm, Minnesota, some people still hold grudges against corporate “monkeys” whose acquisition tinkering at big local companies like Land ‘O Lakes have cost jobs. But, there remain some salt-of-the earth types, like secretary, cook and scrapbook queen Blanche Gunderson (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), willing to show Lucy Hill (Renee Zellwegger) some open-hearted hospitality and the benefit of the doubt until the day it’s revealed that Lucy’s oversight mission is to mechanize and modernize Munck Foods into a 50% downsizing.

Arriving in a frigid town of less than 14,000 booted and parka’d people from sunny Miami comes as a bit of a shock to the smartly under-dressed junior executive who doesn’t get far with her MBA lingo-laced pep talk about branding and capitalizing on new markets with skeptical people like Stu (J.K. Simmons), the plant’s foreman. He and his cronies pull Lucy’s chain until she sacks him. That doesn’t go over well with the district labor union rep, Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick, Jr.), a single father who is a fixture in the community as a firefighter, snow plow operator, tow truck driver and all-around hunk. He thinks big business is run by robber barons. She thinks he’s a “sorry ass truck driver.” Still, there’s an undeniable spark of mutual attraction.

By Christmas there’s a thaw in her heart; and by Valentine’s Day she has worked her way into the soft spots in not just Ted’s but the factory workers’ hearts.

Then, Miami lowers the boom. The Rocket Bars didn’t meet expectations in its market test, and the food conglomerate wants Lucy to work out the timetable for a shut down of Munck Foods. In a satisfying, if improbable, turn of events, Lucy finds the key to saving the factory not in some impersonal corporate test kitchen, but right in Blanche Gunderson’s bowl of secret recipe tapioca pudding.

Rising above some of the lame-brained gags she gamely endures, Zellwegger reaches for more than a one-dimensional impression; and is helped immeasurably by her folksy supporting cast.

A Golden Circle Films production, Lionsgate Films release, rated PG for language.

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