Definitely, Maybe

a little review by Sam Osborn

While staying within the fencing of its own genre, Definitely, Maybe tells a distinctly American story of adulthood, fatherhood, politics, and, of course, relationships. Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds), a successful Manhattan ad man, is implored by his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin of Little Miss Sunshine fame) to explain the story of her conception. You see, Maya’s a fresh graduate of public education’s grand sex ed program, and thus wildly curious about doing it. Not helping matters is the envelope landing on Will’s desk containing his divorce papers. Guilty and defenseless against his daughter’s pleas, Will is harangued into recounting the tale of meeting her mother. The catch is that there are three women involved, and Will mounts the story up as a mystery for Maya where she must guess at the end of the tale which of the three women is her mom.

The film is timely if not current, with Will spending much of his time scrambling through the nineties while writer/director Adam Brooks draws neat parallels between the 1992 election of President Clinton and the Democratic surge occurring as I write this. The political spin, along with all the other tangential interests of Definitely, Maybe, might come randomly, but they also quietly work to make Will Hayes into a kind of new Everyman for the American male. This understanding of, how should we put it, the male national conscious, is refracted then into the three women of his romantic life: Emily (Elizabeth Banks) the college sweetheart, April (Isla Fisher) the wandering friend, and Summer (Rachel Weisz) the surreptitious workaholic. In working his way through the tangled stories of all three, Mr. Brooks contains himself to the tools his genre. There are the sweet monologues, guitar strums and orchestral hoorahs, there are the last-scene kisses, and mid-movie break-ups. No beat is missed. But also strung effortlessly among these familiar landmarks is a reminder that there are certain few people in our lives who shape and define us. They are worth the love and the pain we invest into such relationships, and in some cases, they mean as much to the children that are, by consequence, produced. Definitely, Maybe is still the Romantic Comedy you shelled out ten dollars for. But as we exit the theatres, let’s try and say something other than, “That was cute.”

Definitely, Maybe: Written and Directed by Adam Brooks. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin. MPAA Classification: PG-13 for sexual content including some frank dialogue, language and smoking.