When in Rome (2010)

*Get the film on Amazon here*

If I wanted to watch bad television, I would have skipped this film and turned on any original basic cable daytime programming.

Beth (Kristen Bell) is a driven museum curator suddenly invited to Rome to be in her sister's (Alexis Dziena) wedding. While her younger sister celebrates her whirlwind romance, Beth worries about a huge exhibition overseen by her cold boss Celeste (Anjelica Huston, who wandered in for a paycheck). At the wedding, Beth meets the charming Nick (Josh Duhamel), and the two get along very well until the well-worn sitcom cliche -"sees possible new boyfriend kissed by mystery girl"- rears its ugly head. Beth gets good and drunk- the adorable rom-com drunk, not the puke-on-your-own-hair drunk- and takes some coins from the conveniently placed Fountain of Love, where the lovelorn throw in their Euros and other monies and hope for true love. An odd thing happens. The five coins she took are magically connected to the five men who threw them in, and those five men fall hopelessly in love with Beth, who has jetted back home to New York City. Beth must not only avoid sportswriter Nick, but struggling artist Antonio (Will Arnett), self-obsessed male model Gale (Dax Shepard), street magician Lance (Jon Heder), and sausage king Al (Danny DeVito). Beth must discern whether Nick is feeling real love through a series of badly written set pieces, as the other four men make fools of themselves trying to win her heart, too.

For a ninety-one minute movie, this film has a lot of characters. Both Beth and Nick have the standard network of try-to-be-funnier supporting friends, and Beth's divorced parents (Peggy Lipton, Don Johnson) bicker and give Beth sads. The editing is choppy and the viewer is thrown into the melee quickly, so we don't get to know Beth, a vacuous harpy I didn't sympathize with. Bell is okay in the lead role, but she must act her way through a screenplay that unravels like a series of rejected "Saturday Night Live" skits. The vase that wouldn't break at the wedding? Calling a girl during a men-only poker game? A "blackout" restaurant? The cast goes through the motions, with Duhamel and Shepard getting the most precious laughs as the film makers lurch from one unfunny set-up to another. The cast doesn't get to "play" or improvise (check out Shepard on the blooper reel delivering funnier material than what ended up in the final cut), reined in by a pace meant to hide all the predictability.

It's sad, but "When in Rome" is indicative of the sorry state of romantic comedies. Like a plate of spaghetti, it's been done before, is a bit cheesy, and brings little satisfaction but a lot of heartburn.

Stats:
(2010) 91 min. (1/2 *) out of five stars
-Directed by Mark Steven Johnson
-Written by David Diamond & David Weissman
-Cast: Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Anjelica Huston, Alexis Dziena, Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, Danny DeVito, Peggy Lipton, Don Johnson, Kate Micucci, Luca Calvani, Keir O'Donnell
(PG-13)