I'm really struggling with this review, which is strange because usually with movies I despise, the words come alarmingly easy. But I know why this is so difficult--it's because WHEN IN ROME actually hurts to watch. WHEN IN ROME is a cute baby deer seconds after it has been run down by a pick-up truck and left for dead. But it's not dead; it's lying there struggling, in immense pain, struggling to take a breath. It's in agony and it needs to be put down, out of its indescribable misery, so that it can go to a special place where it can be something better than it is. Seeing an adorable creature suffering puts me in a great deal of pain, and that's what it was like watching WHEN IN ROME...from the director of DAREDEVIL and GHOST RIDER. Sigh.
What's worse is that Kristen Bell should know better. She almost can't help but be funny and appealing in every circumstance. Yes somehow, director Mark Steven Johnson actually invents ways to make her a grading, controlling, stupid ninny of a woman who we're told is a curator at New York's Guggenheim Museum, but who I didn't believe for a second could curate a ham-and-cheese sandwich at the corner deli. And I think that clumsy woman who tripped into that Picasso the other day knows more about art than Bell's Beth. But I digress. Beth finds out that her younger sister (Alexis Dziena) has met an Italian man and is getting married right away. Why this rushed-marriage scenario is so important to the story is never explained, as are many other plot points that seem placed here to make the proceedings seem quirky and fun, but actually serve to make me both tired and homicidal.
The Rome wedding forces Beth to take a couple days off work just days before her biggest curating job is about to happen. Anjelica Huston lessens her career credibility by appearing as Beth's one-dimensional bitchy boss. In Rome, Beth meets the ceremony's best man, an adorably clumsy Nick (Josh Duhamel), who thinks Beth is peachy. Turns out that when Nick was younger, he was a well-known college football player who got hit by lightning during a game. Again, this point could have easily been written out of the script and nobody would have missed it, but it keeps getting brought up and making me angry. Beth finds herself attracted to Nick, but after she catches him making out with another woman during the reception, she jumps into a "magic fountain" and starts pulling out coins that men threw in for luck in love. She pulls out five coins, which for some reason, triggers the gods of lame romantic comedies to make five strangers fall in love with Beth. Listen to this line up of actors playing the four of the five schlubs, none of whom are funny in this movie: Danny Devito, Jon Heder, Will Arnett, and Dax Shepard. The identity of the fifth guy to throw himself at Beth is kept a secret from us, but she presumes it to be Nick because she's so unlovable she can't imagine a man loving her for her. Come to think of it, I can't either.
All of the men follow her from Rome to New York City and vie for her attention and affection. Heder's magician character is just weird enough to elicit a laugh or two, and Shepard's self-obsessed male model character made me crack up a few times. But beyond that, this movie left me stone faced and hard hearted. Even the beauty and charm of Kristen Bell could not come even a little bit close to saving any part of this movie. And don't even get me started on the aggressively uncomfortable-to-watch closing-credit dance sequence. Did someone think this was a good idea? I'd almost recommend the movie just so you can watch a handful of actors who have been good in other things look so horribly embarrassed during this ending dance number.
A warning to men in particular who get dragged to WHEN IN ROME: if your date enjoys this movie, you may want to raise your standards, because otherwise you are fucking doomed. Hell, if your grandmother likes it, you may want to consider adoption for yourself or at least witness protection. And if you think you might at least enjoy the Roman scenery as you attempt to tune out the foolishness, guess again, Bubbles. The film spends about 30 seconds showing a few touristy attractions of Rome, because apparently the choice comedy just needs to be gotten to right away. Hey people, I see these so you don't have to. So don't! No matter what! As far as I'm concerned, WHEN IN ROME is a race to see what needs to be put out of its misery first: the film or viewer. Need proof? Okay, how about this? Don Johnson (or maybe it's someone who ate Don Johnson) is on hand as Beth's father. I rest my miserable case.
