Kristen Bell earned herself a small but solid following for her work on Veronica Mars, the television show about a girl and her father (played well by Enrico Colantoni) who both had a knack for solving the problems of their small coastal town. She didn’t have to carry the show as she had a remarkably strong supporting cast at all times. She later had a stint on Heroes and has been the narrator behind Gossip Girl since its start in 2007. When she transitioned into films she often had supporting roles like in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Astro Boy (and I’m trying to forget Fanboys). The reason all this matters is because she had yet to land a starring role where she had to carry all the weight until When in Rome. She’s not undeserving as she has a knack for comedy and has proven it time and time again (especially lately as Uda in Party Down – which you should be watching). Sadly, if When in Rome was supposed to be her step up to leading lady stardom, she’s going to find the staircase ends rather abruptly. This isn’t the film that will propel her forward, she’ll be lucky if When in Rome doesn’t drag her down kicking and screaming.
Beth (Bell) has one of the coolest art-based jobs in New York: she works as a curator for the Guggenheim, the museum that Will Smith saw an alien commit suicide off of in Men in Black and which Clive Owen shot to pieces in The International. This time around, the museum suffers no such trauma, and instead sees Beth struggling valiantly to impress her boss (Anjelica Huston) by arranging for the linchpin piece for the upcoming exhibit, a task that would be monumentally easier were her sister not abruptly getting married in Italy, forcing her to leave mid-project. But leave she does and while in Italy she meets a handsome man (Josh Duhamel), has a magical night of romance, steals a few coins from a fountain, and then returns back home.
It turns out that of all those events, it wasn’t the falling in love that will impact her life the most for the movie’s remaining duration. It’s the coin theft. Turns out she just happened to steal the coins of only male wishers, and that because she stole their coins they are now magically in love with her. The poor romantic saps include a model (Dax Shepard), a street magician (Jon Heder), an artist (Will Arnett), and a businessman (Danny DeVito). With these four men pestering her with their passionate courting, Beth desperately attempts to repair the catastrophe occurring in her professional life as the centerpiece of the exhibit has fallen through leaving a giant hole in the presentation. Luckily her real love from the Italy trip just happens to have a rare photograph which he’ll give up if Beth will take the time to go out with him. For reasons more designed to prolong the film then actually obstruct the romance, Beth and her would-be love just never seem to connect for whatever reason until (surprise) the very end when she finally reverses the spell cast on the four other men and discovers that her feelings for Duhamel are real, as are his for her.
Bell can be a strong actress, but when she signs on for a film whose strongest comedic thrusts involve Duhamel constantly running into stationary objects and weird freak shows stalking the heroine, it’s hard to have much confidence in her choice of films. Rarely ever is the comedy genuine and its reliance on pratfalls sucks any of the remaining charm that Bell and Duhamel might have added naturally. Heder just might have the funniest moment in the film, but that’s not hard considering his competition is a poorly picked role by Arnett, a rather relaxed turn by DeVito, and the almost always awful acting of Shepard. Heder steals the show, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.
It’s a comedy, and save for a few scenic touring shots of Italy, there’s not much recommending the film for a hi-def purchase save for some format exclusive extras.
Blu-ray Bonus Features
The aforementioned Blu-ray exclusives include alternate and extended scenes along with a series of bloopers and pranks featuring the cast on the film’s set. Why they chose these as the exclusives is mind-boggling – these should be on every version of the release. Then there’s another selection of deleted scenes and bloopers (which were also on the DVD version) along with a 30H!3 “Starstrukk” music video and the Friday Night Boys “Stupid Love Letter” music video. The exclusives don’t make the bump up worth it, so unless you’re a huge Kristen Bell fan, the When in Rome Blu-ray is a hard sell.
"When in Rome" is on sale June 15, 2010 and is rated PG13. Comedy, Romance. Directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Written by David Diamond & David Weissman. Starring Angelica Huston, Danny DeVito, Dax Shepard, Jon Heder, Josh Duhamel, Kristen Bell, Will Arnett.
