A portly Don Johnson appears as the father of Kristen Bell (pictured left) in this flaccid rom-com about a pretty girl whose encounter with a magic fountain in Rome leaves her with a fleet of comically inappropriate suitors.
Waiting to provide her with true love in the wings is handsome Josh Duhamel. Why are Hollywood rom-coms so dispiriting these days? One after the other they fall on a sated public.
"There’s no emotion that can’t be expressed with a sausage," says Danny DeVito, one suitor who has made his money in "encased meat".
Director Mark Steven Johnson and his screenplay writers seem not to have taken this to heart, since a half-decent sausage would be manna beside their indigestible lines.
Bell performs with bright-eyed insouciance but When in Rome is neither decent fantasy nor convincing fiction.
When In Rome
Cert: PG
