Plenty of questions come to mind here, too, but for entirely different reasons: Where did scriptwriters Kenneth Rance & C.Jay Cox dredge material for the unbelievably shallow character types that are not "quaint," just blandly, superficially stereotypically stupid? And from how many similar movies have they seen to meld them into this corny romantic comedy? What made Renée Zellweger think this was a plum role and agree to play it? From what bag of dusty, corny ideas did director Jonas Elmer dig into for his laughs?

This is a bad film right from the start. Lucy Hill (Zellweger), an up-and-coming business exec leaves her warm pad in Florida on assignment, to determine what can be done to bring a small drink packaging plant into the black, in Ulm, Minnesota. If she's supposed to be smart, she certainly doesn't show it - arriving in the dead of winter in a light, summary outfit and high heels that get caught in the darndest traps around the plant. Her condescending attitude toward the town and its hayseedy inhabitants changes rapidly as she meets the crudest guy of all - union rep Ted (Harry Connick, Jr) - they go from immediate hate to smoldering passion almost overnight. As she learns to love these inane people with strange accents (who casually sit with strangers in long johns and say things like "you becha"), she finds herself standing up to the CEO in Florida and finds a way to convert the sagging plant to a national find.

It's a senseless, sitcom-type of movie with comments like that of a father, warning the kid taking his daughter on their first big date, "I know what's going on in your head - and in your pantsŠ"

Highlight (?) of her outsider persona, however, is labored on a hunting with her new love; she's mummified in heavy outer clothing, has to urinate, makes a lengthy, feeble attempts at "doing it" in the snow-covered bushes, is finally rescued by said boyfriend - so dumb!

No one is believable here; the movie was made on location in Canada, so I doubt that anyone from Tinseltown had the faintest notion of how to portray the possibly interesting characters - Zellweger among them. The best she can do whenever some change of emotion is demanded is purse her lips in that unbecoming way of hers - and, sad to say, no one thought about lighting her to bring out the best in her features; she Is always shot in available light, and for her it's terrible.

Any redeeming values in this loser? None that I can think of.