See enough movie trailers and you develop a sixth sense for stinkers. Here’s a rule for romantic comedy trailers.
If all they can think of to convey a madcap, zany, roller-coaster ride of romantic feel-goodedness is to have the leading lady trip a lot, knock over things and break more breakables than the baggage handlers at Air Canada then, really, they’ve got nothing.
In the creatively empty When In Rome, it’s Kristen Bell. Some other time, it’ll be Isla Fisher causing property damage after losing a heel. Or Jennifer Aniston. Or Katherine Heigl. Klutziness from a beautiful woman is supposed to make us go, “Awww.” We get it. It makes them seem human.
When In Rome (from the director of Daredevil!) is particularly egregious. Its leads have zero chemistry, and it has nothing, nada, to say about love or commitment. No insights into the human condition. Nothing to make you tear over or laugh and say, “That’s so true!” or “That’s just like what happened to me!”
All it has is contrivance — a central one that makes no sense whatsoever, and a whole mess of sub-contrivances that seemed to have been added to the script to make it almost add up to an hour and a half.
(“Hey, how about we have Josh Duhamel take Bell to a theme-restaurant where everybody eats in the dark? I bet we could break a lot of glasses and cutlery with that set piece!”)
The movie’s emptyheaded path is set in motion with the introduction of Beth (Bell), an unlucky-at-love workaholic gallery employee whose sister is getting married impulsively in Rome. Over the objections of her Devil-Wears-Prada-ish boss (Anjelica Huston), she flies off to Rome (look, there’s the Coliseum!), trying to do business by BlackBerry while trying not to ruin her sister’s wedding by tripping all over everything.
Briefly thinking she has met her soulmate in the form of a groomsman named Nick (Duhamel), there’s a crossup in communications that leaves her drunk and bitter by a presumptively magic fountain-of-love.
Again, if you’ve seen the trailer, you know she wades into the fountain and begins peevishly stealing coins — which, by the law of Italian curses the screenwriters just made up, means the coins’ original owners will all fall in love with her.
Cue Will Arnett as a painter with a cheesy Italian accent, Jon Heder as a cheesy street magician, Dax Shepard as a dumb male model and Danny DeVito as a greasy rich guy — all of them stalker-ishly in love with Beth.
The plot arc thus becomes: Break the curse with the four guys she doesn’t want, and try to figure out whether Nick is really in love with her, or is under the love spell. (Philosophical questions such as “What’s the difference?” we will leave to romantic comedies for grownups)
Suffice to say, whether or not you’ve seen the bean-spilling trailer, you’ll quickly figure out where this is heading, which turns every roadblock to the inevitable destination more annoying than hilarious.
