'New in Town', a passable mainstream comedy is all but ruined due to Renée Zellweger's lack of effort, delivering her lines like she was reading off cue cards.

Not quite 'When Harry Met Sally ...' or 'Sweet Home Alabama', nevertheless 'New in Town' gets a lot of things right like capturing the quirks of New Ulm, which without poking fun at small-town living, provides for a script that has some great laughs. An outstanding group of character actors, with an unrecognisable J. K. Simmons playing the part of the curmudgeonly plant foreman, Siobhan Fallon as Lucy's nosy secretary and Harry Connick Jr. as Lucy's romantic foil, are mostly responsible for carrying the comedy.

Zellweger plays Lucy, a midlevel executive at a Miami food conglomerate sent to downsize a small-town plant in New Ulm, Minn. Lucy supplies the film with most of its comedy, as she adjusts to small-town Minnesota culture that still calls executive assistants as secretaries, even as business deals are brokered in duck blinds.

All in all, 'New in Town' features Renée Zellweger as an ambitious Miami executive, whose temporary transfer to the middle of nowhere, begins her reassessment of big city values. With ambitions to spare, she cares more about driving the latest model car, filling her closet with shoes, rather than making friends at work. However, the chance of a big promotion round the corner, has Lucy accepting a temporary assignment re-structuring a manufacturing plant in the snowbound town of New Ulm .

New Ulm and Miami are so different, they could be on separate continents. In Ulm , we see Lucy warming to the locals, discovering life is not just about earning top dollar and wearing the latest fashions. When, Harry Connick, Jr. playing handsome local Ted Mitchell takes an interest in Lucy, the whole town buzzes with rumors of a romance, and the big city girl discovers how a bit of rural magic can work wonders on her outlook on life.

Harmless escapist entertainment, 'New in Town' breaks no new ground in this genre, and while, we are subjected to a montage of past events from the film, as Lucy jogs along a waterfront, nevertheless it is evident that the filmmakers have tried their best to give us something enjoyable, even though it's nothing but forgettable fun.