Movie Review - 'Definitely, Maybe'

Definitely, Maybe

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, and Abigail Breslin
Directed by Adam Brooks
Rated PG-13

Borrowing pages from versions of romance as varied as The Man Who Loved Women and When Harry Met Sally, Definitely, Maybe is saddled with the task of being a romantic comedy for crowds that have seen one too many romantic comedies.

Ultimately, this movie believes that the relationships you always think you want aren’t always the ones you get, nor are they necessarily the ones for which you’re best suited.

On the eve of signing his divorce papers, Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) faces the prospect of explaining to his pre-teen daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), where his relationship with her mother went so wrong. To undertake that delicate project, Will retraces his steps back to college, covering three deeply affecting but altogether different relationships, and when the story ends, Maya will have to guess which woman is really her mother.

Remember the way The Princess Bride went back and forth between the fantasy land and the grandfather reading the story in his grandson’s bedroom? Definitely, Maybe has a lot of that approach without as much magic.

And while the payoff for this whodunit of love isn’t worth the effort, the structuring of Will’s story is solid and refreshing, breaking up the formula we’re used to and giving Reynolds a chance to play the light comedy he’s so adept at. On top of that, the relationships are mostly believable by movie standards and the cast - which you wouldn’t usually throw together in a comedy like this - works together very well.

Reynolds begins his journey with the girl-next-door college sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks) then segues into a more worldly tête-à-tête with a serious, smoldering New York journalist (Rachel Weisz), and throughout both relationships, Will forms an unlikely friendship with a free-spirited redhead (Isla Fisher).

Fisher is particularly strong, always leaving a little mystery under the surface, while Weisz and Banks have less to do, which may or may not tell you where Definitely, Maybe is heading. For his part, the easygoing Reynolds probably has a better connection on screen with Breslin than he does any of the women in his life, two of whom, it turns out, are actually women in his way.

For good or bad, Definitely, Maybe takes a small step out of the ordinary. The reward isn’t much bigger than the risk, but in the year of romantic comedies like Over Her Dead Body and The Hottie and the Nottie, we’ll take any small step we can get.