WHEN IN ROME
US, 2010, 91 minutes. Colour.
Kristen Bell, Josh Duhamel, Anjelica Huston, Will Arnett, Don Johnson, Jon Heder, Dax Shepard, Alexis Dziena, Peggy Lipton, Danny DeVito?, Lee Pace.
Directed by Mark Steven Johnson.
When in Rome is a very slight romantic comedy. Audiences who are older or who watch television may remember the fine romance of the 1950s, Three Coins in the Fountain. This is very much a one coin in one fountain.
The film is a romantic comedy which may please an undemanding audience – but which may tax the patience and the tolerance of many other audiences.
Kristen Bell works hard. Her relationship breaks up. She is invited to go to Rome for the wedding of her sister (Alexis Dziena) who is marrying someone she has known for a very short time. Kristen Bell, as Beth, is cautious. She is also curating a photographic exhibition and her boss, Anjelica Huston, puts demands on her.
Much of the film is set in Rome at the wedding. She encounters a friend of the groom, played with some self-satisfied charm by Josh Duhamel. It seems they fall in love. On Beth’s return, she encounters Duhamel again, gets involved in some romantic tanglements.
However, there is a touch of magic realism because as she throws the coin in the fountain, three men become infatuated with her. They follow her to the United States. One is an artist, played by Will Arnett. The other is an eccentric played by Jon Heder and the third is a vain male model portrayed by Dax Shepard. Also on the scene influenced by the spell is Danny De Vito. The trouble is that Beth thinks that Duhamel has also been affected by the spell and is not really in love with her.
The rest of the film is untangling the tangles to a happy ending.
The film was directed by Mark Steven Johnson, a writer of such films as Daredevil and Electra as well as the director of Simon Burch, Ghost Rider.
1. The popularity of romantic comedies? The impact of this one? Plot, locations, cast?
2. The American settings, galleries, offices, apartments? The streets? The comparison with Rome, the wedding, the church, the fountains, the streets? The musical score?
3. Beth’s story: her working hard at the gallery, the preparation for the show, her assistant and advice, the assistant making faux pas as regards the donors for the exhibition, Beth having to sort things out? The board meeting and Celeste and her demands? The news about her sister’s wedding? The break-up with her boyfriend and the comments from her friends at the restaurant?
4. The trip to Rome, forty-eight hours, arrival, preparing for the wedding, the encounter with her father and his girlfriend? The wedding itself, the groom, meeting the groom, her relationship with her sister? Her support of her? Nick, arriving late, the mobile phone? The reception, the food, the drink, the dancing? Nick and his attentions? Her drinking too much, going outside, the coin in the fountain? The men looking on? The encounter with Nick – and seeing him go off with the girl?
5. Return home, hard at work, Celeste and her pressures? Nick and his contacting her? Her resistance?
6. The personalities of the suitors and their pursuing her? The infatuations? Antonio, his paintings, the mural? Lance, his gadgets, his eccentric attentions? Gale, his vanity, posing? Danny DeVito? as the older man and his declarations of love? The story about the coins, returning the coins and breaking the spell? Beth and her being busy to do this?
7. Nick, falling in love, the scenes with Beth? Her rejecting him, disbelief, the issue of the coin? Discovering that he was not under a spell? Falling in love?
8. The popularity of this type of story – how well treated here?
