We enjoy Renee Zellwegger in the “Bridget Jones” movies she did so we welcome the sight of her in the new romantic comedy, “New In Town,” set in the remote town of New Ulm in Minnesota which is covered by snow for about six months each year. The setting reminds us of the Oscar-winning “Fargo,” a town also located in Minnesota, and the characters in both films speak with a very pronounced quaint accent.

Renee plays Lucy Hill, a blonde wearing stilleto heels who is used to the warmth of sunshiny Florida, so going to a freezing place like New Ulm is a big sacrifice for her. (But the film was actually shot on location in Winnipeg, Canada, which also has freezing climate.) She works as an ambitious executive in a food processing company in Miami and is assigned to downsize and restructure their company’s plant in New Ulm, which is populated by people of Scandinavian and German descent. (Old Ulm is a town in Germany where Albert Einstein was born.)

The film opens with four women in New Ulm gathered on a table pasting things into scrapbooks. Lucy is supposed to be a Scrooge who’s job is to intimidate the people in New Ulm, so she doesn’t even smile to keep a tough facade. But one of the women scrappers, Blanche Gunderson (Siobhan Hogan), who acts as Lucy’s assistant, is not really scared of her and even invites her to dinner in her home. There, she meets Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jr.), the widowed father of a 13-year-old girl, Bobbie (Ferron Guerreiro).

Ted is the representative of the local union in the plant that Lucy plans to close down. As maybe expected, they don’t get along fine at the start, since Ted doesn’t seem to be that nice. Lucy and Ted had an argument that ends with both of them walking out. But you know their fight is just part of their romantic foreplay.

As maybe expected again in vehicles of this sort, Lucy is actually a softie and soon realizes that the people in New Ulm are really friendly, diligent and they’re all proud of their work in the plant.

Whaddaya know? She starts to like their small town folksiness, including the hunky Ted, and eventually does her best to save the plant that she’s actually supposed to shut down, with her character transformation happening right on Christmas Eve when the townspeople gathered around the Christmas tree to sing about the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

If you go for this kind of romantic fluff, then no doubt you’ll enjoy “New in Town” as it’s really sweet, wholesome and tries its best to be a feel-good crowdpleaser. The script maybe formulaic, but all the mawkish and sappy ingredients are calculated by Director Jonas Elmer (a Danish filmmaker making his directorial debut in Hollywood) to make sure the movie has a happily ever after ending where the lovers find a long and lasting love. In this hard times of recession in the US, it also offers the fantasy of showing blue collar plant being saved from economic doom.

Renee and Harry maybe playing predictable one-dimensional characters but they have enough charisma and succeed in making us care for them even if they are given somewhat trite dialogue. Renee, in particular, breezes through in her fish-out-water role with much endearing confidence and it’s good to see her in another comedy like this. The film also manages to convey positive inputs about learning how to forget your first impressions, the need to prioritize people before company profits, and the advantage of people cooperating and pulling together in a community.