Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick, Jr. star in a romantic comedy from Lions Gate Entertainment about a high-powered executive from Miami sent to little New Ulm, Minnesota, to “restructure” (read: close) a factory that supports the entire town. While Lucy Hill (Zellweger) has much to learn about being the new person in town, and New Ulm has much to teach her about living in community with others, both the new and the old have a journey toward reimaging that serves as a lesson for both. Sprinkled with laughter and romance, the film shows that you can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as there’s someone willing to teach and someone willing to learn.
You can see the comedy coming: big deal headhunter from a sunny city finds herself in the cold confines of a backwater, blue-collar town. Most of what follows in that department goes without saying, but the true humor and soul of the movie finds itself outside of the expected Zellweger-Connick relationship, instead residing in the person of Blanche Gunderson (Siobhan Fallon). That’s not to take away from Zellweger, Connick, or even J.K. Simmons’ Stu Kopenhafer, but I’d call Fallon’s Gunderson the scene-stealer in this one.
Gunderson is the social and spiritual lightning rod of New Ulm. As the plant manager’s secretary, she has a good handle on what’s happening inside the corporate side of the office as well as the plant itself. But in Gunderson’s case, she’s also the one who knows how the people of New Ulm think, works the scrapbooking scene to stay current with the women, and has a healthy understanding of what it means to be an evangelical Christian in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. Gunderson knows who she is and she’s not apologetic about it; outsiders would be foolish to consider her dumb, even if she’s noticeably behind in the times and a bit naive.
So, how do you exist as the person sent in to close down a plant and put a whole community out of work? What is your response if you’re a member of that community and seemingly have no hope of changing the flow of the economy in your town? Well, like Kirk in Star Trek, the only way to beat the Kobayashi Maru is to change the rules of the game. (How’s that for cross-pollinating genre illustrations?!) And that’s how New Ulm really does get renewed, how Hill saves her own soul and the town and her relationship with Connick’s Ted Mitchell, and new life is breathed into an old situation. If the plant’s product isn’t needed anymore, than it needs a new product…
Wouldn’t it be amazing if our lives really worked that way? What would happen if when we realized something was old or out-of-date that we changed how we looked at it, or allowed our God-given imaginations to soar and adapted that old thing to something new and fulfilling? Instead, too often we cop out with something like “but this is how we’ve always done it” or we just throw it away. Fallon’s Gunderson wants to see Lucy renewed (”Have you found Jesus?”) but in the end, the whole town experiences revival instead of a single soul.
So grab the popcorn and a coke, and a date, and kick back for a romantic comedy with small-town charm and a heart of gold. Maybe you too will be renewed and fulfilled or, at the very least, be hungry for some tapioca.
