Not quite funny, nor romantic, the latest romantic comedy from Lionsgate “New In Town” hardly brings anything new to the table.

The movie is a typical “love story” between a city businesswoman, Lucy Hill, played by Renee Zellweger, exiled to a small Minnesota town where she’s supposed to supervise the dismantling of one of the firm’s non-producing units but is immediately drawn to the hunky local union representative, Ted Mitchell, played Harry Connick Jr..

Less than ten minutes into the movie, it becomes easy to tell how the other eighty something minutes will go, and yet, it doesn’t require too much patience to stick around until the end. There’s just something about this formulaic, unoriginal drivel that makes it bearable. 

Moving past the amusing scenes mostly of Zellweger’s character trying to adjust to the folksy small-town Minnesota culture where executive assistants are still called secretaries, and business deals are brokered in duck blinds, “New In Town” captures the quirks of New Ulm without poking gratuitous fun at small-town living, and the script has a handful of laughs.

Although the leads don't seem particularly at home in these aggressively homey surroundings, Zellweger did a fine job being the outsider and getting the locals to accept her. Capable of being both charming and disarming, she can't help being cute, but she's long past the point at which she can simply coast on her squinched-up pout, and her performance here is wearyingly self-conscious.

On a positive note, Connick delivers the much needed relaxation for both Zellweger and the audience. His performance is relatively easy to take, as he and Zellweger have good chemistry.

Zellweger recently said she signed on to play Lucy because she craved a light, fun comedy in which she could goof around in the snow, giggle on set and even do her own stunts.