Movie Review- When in Rome (2010)

While searching YouTube for something new to watch, I discovered YouTube’s movie channel YouTube Movies had some movies available to watch that are free to view with ads. One of the movies is When in Rome, a romantic comedy staring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel with Will Arnett, Alexis Dziena, Jon Heder, Dax Shepard, Danny DeVito, and Anjelica Huston. Since it was available for free, and it was near Valentines Day, I decided to watch it.

When in Rome is about Beth Martin (Kristen Bell), an employee at a museum and a woman disillusioned with love after a bad breakup with her ex the year before. When her sister tells her she is engaged and is getting married in Rome, she travels to Rome to attend and participate in the wedding. There, she meets Nick Beamon (Josh Duhamel) who is also in the wedding party.

After a series of embarrassing mishaps at the wedding, Beth begins to fall for Nick, but her heart is crushed when she sees him kiss another woman. Upset and drunk, Beth goes to the “fountain of love” and picks up five coins that was thrown into the fountain.  After returning from Rome, Beth experiences a series of encounters with different men that flirt with her, including Nick. After discovering Beth took coins from the fountain, Beth’s sister tells her that legend says that is someone takes a coin from the fountain, the person who threw the coin into the fountain falls in love with the person who took the coin. After experiencing more encounters with men, she learns that the men that flirt and encountered are all men who threw the coins into the fountain, including Nick.

I really liked the movie. It’s not a movie I would normally enjoy watching, but I really enjoyed it. The story is, of course, not very realistic (After all, taking coins from a fountain isn’t going to make someone fall madly in love with someone) and it is cheesy, but it was really cute anyway. It is light hearted and very enjoyable. The plot, although unrealistic, is easy to follow but it keeps the viewer’s insert. It was also fun to see the references in the movie. For an example, Jon Heder plays a street musician who threw a coin Beth picked up from the fountain. Also in the movie is, Estifan Ramirez, who plays Jon Heder’s friend in both When in Rome and in the 2004 movie Napoleon Dynamite. Also in the movie is Kristen Bell’s real life husband Dax Shepard, who plays another character that threw a coin in the fountain Beth picked.

I would recommend this movie to anyone that wants to watch a nice romantic comedy with an easy to follow plot or anyone who enjoys romantic comedies with a magical element to it.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!

Disclaimer: All the information about this movie, such as director, writer, or actor names, was found online via the Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb) or articles found from websites such as http://www.rogerebert.com and Rotten Tomatoes.