When in Rome is a romantic comedy film directed by Mark Steven Johnson, co-written by Johnson, David Diamond and David Weissman, and starring Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel. It premiered in the United States on January 29, 2010.

A successful and single Guggenheim art curator Beth Harper (Kristen Bell) is at a point in her life where love seems like a luxury she just can't afford. Years of waiting for that perfect romance has made Beth bitter. One day, she goes to Rome to attend her younger sister's impulsive wedding. While there, she picks up coins from a reputed “fountain of love” (probably based on the Trevi Fountain). Almost immediately thereafter, she is pursued back to New York by a band of aggressive suitors whose coins she took, including diminutivesausage magnate (Danny DeVito), a lanky street magician (Jon Heder), a doting painter (Will Arnett), and a narcissistic male model (Dax Shepard). Meanwhile, a smitten reporter (Josh Duhamel) does his best to convince Beth that true love isn't just a topic of fairy tales and romance novels.

Cast

• Kristen Bell as Elizabeth "Beth" Harper, a successful but hopelessly single Gotham curator at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Although bitter towards love, she seems to yearn for it sub-consciously and is very much in love with Nick.
• Josh Duhamel as Nick Beamon, a semi-confident and nervous man who is in love with Beth and is her primary love interest. He is desperate to win her affections and seems to love her very much.
• Jon Heder as Lance, a street magician who uses his talents to try to get Beth
• Dax Shepard as Gale, a self-absorbed suitor who falls under the spell of the coins and chases Beth
• Will Arnett as Antonio a.k.a Anthony or Tony, a wanna-be Italian artist who follows Beth to New York
• Alexis Dziena as Joan, Beth's younger sister, who impulsively marries in Rome
• Anjelica Huston as Celeste, Beth's boss and the curator of the Guggenheim
• Danny DeVito as Al Russo, another one of Beth's suitors
• Don Johnson as Beth's father
• Kate Micucci as Stacy
• Bobby Moynihan as Puck
• Kristen Schaal as Ilona
• Lee Pace as Brady Sacks, Beth's ex-boyfriend
• Alexa Havins as Lacey
• Shaquille O'Neal and Lawrence Taylor appear as themselves.

Production

• Filming took place in New York.
• To promote the film, Don Johnson and Jon Heder co-hosted WWE's Monday night RAW on January 18th 2010.
• 3OH!3 based their music video for "Starstrukk Remix" featuring Katy Perry on When In Rome. The video features 3OH!3 reaching into a wishing fountain and grabbing its coins and later being attacked by the girls whose coins were thrown in. The song will be featured in previews for the movie as well as the soundtrack.
• Friday Night Boys used clips from the movie in their music video for "Stupid Love Letter", which was featured on the movie soundtrack and in some of the previews for the movie.

Reception

The film has received negative reviews from critics. Review aggretator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 17% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 66 reviews with an average score of 3.4/10.  Its consenus states that "A pair of young, attractive leads can't overcome When in Rome's reliance on unfunny gags and threadbare rom-com clichés." Another review aggretator, Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average of 0-100 of the top reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film a "generally unfavorable" score of 25% from 24 reviews.

Despite negative reviews, James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film a fair review of 2.5/4 stars claiming "The saving grace of the otherwise generic product is that Bell's vivacity and Duhamel's rakish charm allow the viewer to root for them, even if sometimes that rooting goes so far as to wish the script would serve the couple better than it does