New In Town

(Lions Gate Films )

Starring: Renée Zellweger, Harry Connick Jr. 

If there’s one lesson we learn from New in Town, it’s that Minnesota looks really, really cold and wearing high heels in deep snow isn’t wise. Zellweger plays Lucy Hill, an über-ambitious executive seeking a promotion who volunteers to oversee a factory restructuring in tiny New Ulm, Minn. Lucy hasn’t counted on the rigors of northern life, so there are plenty of obligatory scenes of her adjusting to the chill, the Fargo-esque accents and the state holiday for ice-fishing. Once she meets and starts fighting with Ted, the scruffily handsome union leader (Connick), one can pretty much see where the story

is heading, but there are actually a few surprises on the way. Renée and Harry share a nice, easy chemistry, and the cast — which includes Spider-Man’s J.K. Simmons — seems to be having fun with their, um, colorful local characters. We only wonder how the real residents of New Ulm will react to their quaint depiction on the big screen.