Definitely, Maybe
Rated: PG-13
This film is a waste. It's a waste of a fun framing device, it's a waste of its unique genre-blend, and it's a waste of its talented cast. If you wanted to waste almost two hours of your time, Definitely, Maybe would be for you (also, 1 hour and 50 minutes is about ten to twenty minutes too long for a romantic comedy unless you're making a classic like It Happened One Night). Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a single father who is now getting divorced from his wife. Whether his wife left him when their daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) was born or if he's just trying to tell her about how he met her mother is unclear and that's a big problem because the entire film is about Will telling Maya about three women: Emily (Elizabeth Banks), Summer (Rachel Weisz), and April (Isla Fisher) and letting Maya try to figure out which one is her mother. Maya quotes the studio exec who probably heard this pitch, "It's like a romance-mystery!" And that does sound like fun as does a father trying to tell his eight-year-old daughter about his romantic life while trying to remain a moral figure that she'll continue to idolize until she's at least twelve and loathes him as all adolescents do. But anything that's fun about this movie is totally wasted. Any time this film has a chance to do something unique and funny, it goes in the opposite direction. For instance, when Will picks up some cigarettes, he could instead say "candy". Or he could try to drop more clues throughout rather than just tell a straight romantic comedy about a guy who is ridiculously hot (I swear, Ryan Reynolds' bicep is as big as his head) and who has three hot girlfriends. If it wasn't for Reynolds and Fisher, this film would be unwatchable. But the chemistry they have and their comic timing is like an éclair sitting on top of a trash bin. But as Jerry pointed out in that episode of Seinfeld, "adjacent to refuse, is refuse." Words by |