Lucy (Renee Zellweger, right) is a Miami exec charged with shutting down a small-town factory, where she meets union rep Ted (Harry Connick Jr.), in the romantic comedy New in Town. (New Line Cinema)

Somehow, at this particular moment in history, a film that tries to squeeze comedy from the subject of downsizing just doesn’t bring the giggles. New in Town has a few other ailments, too — namely that it appears to be the demon spawn of Sweet Home Alabama (same screenwriter) and the TV series Men in Trees — but none so glaring as its tone-deaf sniggering at the blue collar way of life. Hey, Hollywood: factory workers don’t need to be kicked by a Jimmy Choo when they’re already down.

Somehow, at this particular moment in history, a film that tries to squeeze comedy from the subject of downsizing just doesn’t bring the giggles.

Renée Zellweger plays Lucy, apparently the only woman in her Miami-based Fortune 500 company. The character serves as a warning for any young, female business student: corporate ladder-climbing makes the single ladies brittle and humourless and keeps them, well, single. Lucy’s new assignment is to “reconfigure” a peanut butter factory in a one-stoplight Minnesota town (played by Winnipeg and environs), which means laying off half the local workforce.

Fish, exit water stage left. It seems that a straight iron and a pair of stilettos aren’t enough to protect Lucy from the elements, which include sub-arctic temperatures and an army of simpleton locals with Fargo accents. Ted (Harry Connick Jr.) is the sole exception, a bearded union rep with a chip on his plaid shoulder about corporate greed. But the chip doesn’t have a chance against Lucy’s innate cuteness, on full display when Ted rescues her in a snowstorm. (Maybe it’s the Canadian in me, but I just couldn’t get past the fact that while buried in a car in a snow bank during a blizzard, Lucy NEVER PUTS ON A HAT. This is a scrappy, street-smart heroine?)

The factory really in need of shuttering is the one that churns out this particular brand of oatmeal-y, “woman’s” comedy season after season. For every rom-com cliché that New in Town avoids — no one gets bummed and eats ice cream; no one lip-syncs to Motown — it simply invents a new, lamer one: Lucy scarfs Tapioca instead of ice cream; Lucy can’t get her snowsuit off to pee in the woods.

Ted shows Lucy the benefits of a peanut factory in New in Town. (New Line Cinema)

Of course, Lucy, if not Minnesota, is destined to thaw, and leave her ice queen haughtiness for the softer — possibly more feminine — ways of small-town America. But this perpetually unconvincing film is never less convincing than when it pledges affection for real folk. The town’s citizens are brutal caricatures. Lucy’s assistant, Blanche Gunderson (Siobhan Fallon), uses the word “scrapbook” as a verb and never shies away from working Jesus into conversation; a curmudgeonly floor supervisor (J.K. Simmons) says folksy things like, “Oh, for crying in the beer cheese soup!”

All of this is as unflattering to rural inhabitants as the worn-out cliché of the sphincter-clenched, under-laid female CEO is to city dwellers. The townspeople never get to reveal the kind of depth that might show Lucy the value in another way of life, other than making a few mediocre gestures of human kindness, like sewing her a quilt. But surely people in Miami do nice things for one another? Like, “Here, I sewed you this bikini”?

Caricatures don’t have to be kind, but they do have to be funny, and New in Town really isn’t. Zellweger, perhaps in the spirit of that schoolyard game “Opposite Day,” plays a skinny professional success to make us forget that chubby goofball Bridget Jones. In the latter role, Zellweger displayed a knack for screwball hijinks, but in New in Town, there’s no sign of playfulness, no self-deprecation or warmth. Lucy is so nasty and stiff in the first act that her theoretical transformation into a more likeable gal’s gal just never takes. Connick is much looser. His he-man breeziness is convincing enough that he provides a kind of comfort in the cold: at least someone involved had some fun.

New in Town opens Jan. 30.

Katrina Onstad is the film columnist for CBCNews.ca.