When in Rome (2010)

First off, my apologies to all of the boyfriends and husbands who will inevitably be forced to sit through When in Rome, or as I like to call it, Love in the Time of Caller ID.  It’s a romantic comedy devoid of humor, and the only romance appears to be between a girl and her Blackberry.

That girl is cute-as-a-button Beth (Kristen Bell), a workaholic junior curator at the Guggenheim Museum of Art in New York City. Oh yeah, Hollywood, we’re doing this again? Type-A big city career woman too screwed up to find love? Oh, well. Carry on.

On the eve of her biggest exhibition to date–a gala centered on the art of pain (no comment)–Beth’s younger sister (Alexis Dziena) meets a gorgeous Italian fellow and decides to get married right away in Rome. Much to the displeasure of her slave-driver boss (Anjelica Huston), Beth must get out of town (read: Wi-fi range) to attend the nuptials.

While there, she meets Nick, the good-looking best man (Josh Duhamel). You know it’s love at first sight because as he’s running down the aisle, late, his cell phone starts to ring. Someone as attached to his iPhone as Beth is to her Blackberry? It must be destiny. They make googly eyes at each from across the aisle until it’s time for a little close dancing at the reception.

But complications immediately arise (romantic comedy, remember?) and send a champagne-drunk and barefoot Beth into the Fontana di Amore to pick up coins out of spite. One of those coins is a poker chip that may or not belong to Nick. The only problem is that anyone whose coin she retrieves will magically fall in love with her and feel compelled to pursue her.

So, the brigade of men whose love she’s stolen from the fountain follows Beth back to New York. (You didn’t think you got to stay among the beautiful Roman ruins, did you?) They include a Criss Angel-wannabe street magician (Jon Heder), a sausage king (Danny DeVito), an Italian painter (Will Arnett), and a shallow male model (Dax Shepard). These men are all so truly, madly, creepily in love with her that they stalk her wherever she goes–at home, on her morning run, in a local coffee shop, and at the office. That last one leads to one headache after another for Beth as she’s trying to prepare for her career-making or breaking exhibit.

Amid all this brouhaha, Nick also attempts to court Beth. But she’s been burned by love before and is convinced that he’s one of “those guys.” To audiences, he looks more like someone who gets hurt a lot himself. In fact, the screenplay, as penned by David Diamond and David Weissman (the geniuses behind Old Dogs), has Nick getting hit by cars, poles, goats, even lightning. They’ve turned him into the clumsy but cute leading lady. Not sexy.

That leaves Beth to wear the pants in the relationship, but it can’t strictly be said that the two have any relationship at all. She spends so much time on her mobile device trying to get her gala to go off without a hitch (or else fighting off suitors) that the two spend about 20 minutes of actual screen time together. When they do, Duhamel and Bell are undeniably adorable and have a sort of chemistry. It’s just not enough to matter.

The supporting characters take up entirely too much screen time to be as unfunny as they are. Even veteran comedian DeVito looks like an amateur (what, no getting naked, little man?). The best of the supporting bunch is Heder as the magician and that’s thanks mostly to a running Napoleon Dynamite in-joke.

To his credit, director Mark Steven Johnson keeps the movie to a quick 90 minutes. Boyfriends, husbands, and this reviewer couldn’t take much more of this fine romance. If this is what it looks like, to quote Dorothy Fields, “You take romance, I’ll take Jell-o.”

Also Recommended:

• Up in the Air
• Paper Heart
• Australia