Movie Review: Definitely Maybe

By Daniel Dessinger

May 14, 2008

TiVo and its other DVR friends have many advantages, not the least of which is the ability to fast forward through commercials. Without this ability, I might have found myself as fed up by the endless trailers for Definitely, Maybe as one of my friends who doesn’t have the luxury of recording live TV through her cable or dish box was.

Instead, I was thrilled when I found out it was still at the dollar theaters. And I was even more thrilled that the guy I’m dating was actually willing to go with me…to a chick flick. Apparently some “fairy tales” can come true. *wink, wink*

Ryan Reynolds plays the young but slightly haggard father to the lovely Abigail Breslin. It’s my humble opinion that if you don’t love her, then there’s something wrong with you. She’s simply brilliant, and her performance in Little Miss Sunshine was pure gold.

Anyway, Reynolds plays Will Hayes, and we soon find that the current highlight of his life are the days when he gets to go pick up Maya, Breslin, from school. Hayes is going through a divorce from Maya’s mother, and on one such night when he has his beloved daughter for the evening, she asks the question almost every child has asked one or both of their parents at some point, “So how did you and Mom/Dad meet?”

Most of the film is made up of flashbacks as Hayes tells Maya the story of the three women who were in his life before finally marrying her mother. He doesn’t tell her which one is her mother, leaving her to make a game of the love mystery.

Elizabeth Banks isn’t one of my favorite actresses, so I was kind of annoyed with her character, Emily, the college sweetheart. Rachel Weisz, whom I’ve loved since The Mummy, is the erotically illusive Summer, and Isla Fisher, the clingy kind of crazy Gloria from Wedding Crashers, is delightful as April.

I always find stories like this from the male point of view interesting because so often stories like this are told from the female point of view. I mean, they are called chick flicks for a reason. That being said, as I told a coworker today: it was cute, but I probably won’t buy it.