When in Rome

Tagline: Did you ever wish for the impossible?

So I had actually wanted to see this movie when it came out despite my usual aversion from studio romance comedies, but I really like Kristen Bell and I loved her in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the premise of the movie looked cute enough.







The plot is pretty straightforward and follows Kristen Bell, who is a hard working museum curator who doesn’t believe in love, and she meets possibly the man of her dreams, Josh Duhamel, at her sister’s wedding in Rome. Unfortunately, on a whim she picks out 5 coins from a fountain of love and casts a spell on the men who threw in the coins causing them to instantly fall deeply in love with her. Then she sets off on a wild ride to hide from her suitors, pull off an extremely important work gala, and decide if she believes in true love after all. Her suitors are none other than Danny DeVito, Dax Shephard, John Heder, and Will Arnett and her boss is played by the great Angelica Huston.






The plot is pretty clichéd and follows the normal romantic comedy storyline. The difference about this plot is the leeway given to the extravagant suitor characters who are completely quirky and stereotyped. The comedy is fairly humorous and there was actually a scene that I found myself laughing aloud, specifically the tiny car elevator scene. The premise was believable enough and there was a nice storyline and arch with a nicely done conclusion.






The movie was colorful and bright and fast paced which suited the type of movie it is. Kristen Bell’s outfits were really cute and she looked fantastic in this movie. As did Josh Duhamel, except he didn’t really have any cute outfits but he was looking very nice. The locations were pretty and the set direction was nice and contemporary which I always enjoy. The soundtrack was pretty great and included several songs already on my iPod and I must mention that the 3oh!3 music video for their song ‘Starstrukk’, which is featured in the movie and the video is based on the movie, is one of my favorite music videos which has superb editing. This was a fairly light movie so there really wasn’t anything special or unique about the filming.






I think with two different lead actors, the movie wouldn’t have been so cute. Kristen Bell is just captivating and has a charming quality on screen which makes her appear earnest in her movies. Josh Duhamel is also super charming and extremely nice to look at and he also has the same earnest quality which actually made it a semi-believable sort of movie. I really enjoyed it because they were just a fun duo to watch on screen. The supporting characters also helped add to the humor, though not the entire time. John Heder had some funny parts, and some annoying parts. But I really loved when they threw in the cameo from ‘Pedro’ who was his faithful companion in Napoleon Dynamite. I really love Dax Shepard and so I liked his character a lot as well. I loved his line at the end, ‘I really didn’t learn anything from this, but I’m glad I got to help you grow’. I also like Will Arnett and Danny DeVito but their characters didn’t really have any funny parts and could’ve been cut from the movie without making much of a difference. Angelica Huston was in the movie, but that’s about it. Her character wasn’t too important.






Basically it was a pretty humorous, at certain parts, generic studio romantic comedy with two super attractive lead actors and a sometimes funny supporting cast. I would recommend to those who enjoy these types of feel good chick-flick romantic comedies. “I don’t know whether I want to look at my reflection or you, that’s how beautiful you are”. -- When in Rome