Plot
Successful and single Guggenheim art curator Beth (Kristen Bell) is at a point in her life where love seems like a luxury she just can't afford. Years of waiting for the perfect romance has made Beth bitter. After flying to Rome to attend her younger sister Joan's (Alexis Dziena) impulsive wedding, she meets Nicholas Beamon (Josh Duhamel), who rescues her in a couple of difficult situations but is just as much of a clumsy clod as she is. They hit it off well and reach a point where both parties take an interest in the other.
Just as Beth convinces herself to believe in love again, she sees Nick kissing another woman, who turns out to be the groom's (Luca Calvani) 'crazy cousin'. Slightly drunk and jealous at seeing Nick with another woman, she picks up coins (a poker chip, a rare coin, a penny, a trick quarter and a Euro) from the "fountain of love" (probably based on the Trevi Fountain). She later learns from Joan that legend says that if you take coins from the fountain, the owner of the coin will fall in love with you.
Beth discovers that the legend is true. She is pursued back to New York by a band of aggressive suitors whose coins she took, including a diminutive sausage magnate Al (Danny DeVito), lanky street illusionist Lance (Jon Heder), a doting painter Antonio (Will Arnett), and a narcissistic male model Gale (Dax Shepard). She must return the coins to the fountain to break the spell. As she falls in love with Nick, she realizes that the poker chip belongs to him and is convinced that he is merely under a spell, not truly in love with her.
Joan calls Beth on the day of the gala and informs her that the spell can also be broken by returning the coins to the original owner. Stacey (Kate Micucci), Beth's secretary—who is highly concerned about Beth's miserable love life—overhears the conversation and steals the coins, believing that Beth would lead a better life with people loving her, regardless of the spell.
Beth's suitors all show up together at her apartment and she decides to break it to them that she does not love them and plans to return them the coins. After she blurts out her love for Nick to them, she realizes that Stacey has stolen the coins and goes on a mission to retrieve the coins with her suitors aiding her. They all pile into a yellow Vespa 400 microcar (featured on the movie poster), which careens through city traffic, into a hotel and up an elevator.
When Beth explains to Stacey that this is not the way she believes love is, Stacey returns the coins and Beth hands back the coins to their owners. Left with the poker chip, she calls Nick and thanks him for making her believe in love again. As Nick makes his way to the gala to search for Beth in a sudden lightning storm that hits New York, Beth is in a situation with Lance who plays with the poker chip by doing disappearing tricks. She accidentally hits the chip out of Lance's hands and chases it as it rolls down three floors of the spiral gallery.
The chip is picked up by Nick, who appears to be in love with Beth still, convincing Beth that his love was true all along. However, on their wedding day in Rome, Lance reveals to Beth that he had multiple poker chips and the one Beth knocked out on the night of the lightning storm was just one of them, which proves that Nick did not break out of the spell. While exchanging wedding vows, Beth hesitates and dashes out of the building to everyone's surprise. She revisits the fountain of love where she originally picked up the coins and climbs in like before.
Nick appears and climbs into the fountain. He claims that he didn't throw a chip into the fountain at all. He drops the poker chip in the water and the priest is heard yelling 'Free of temptation!'. Beth finally believes Nick and kisses him.
Read more about this topic: When In Rome (2010 Film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“There saw I how the secret felon wrought,
And treason labouring in the traitor’s thought,
And midwife Time the ripened plot to murder brought.”
—Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)