‘Definitely, Maybe’:
Definitely not

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

Revisiting the past can definitely help you understand the present and maybe even determine the future. At least, that’s the line of thinking in Definitely, Maybe.
Before attending a preview screening of the movie, I went online and watched the trailer because I had never heard of it. I thought the concept sounded interesting, plus the movie poster touted the fact that it was from the makers of Love Actually and Notting Hill, which I thought were pretty good.
I had high hopes for this Valentine’s Day romcom (romantic comedy) based on the trailer and the cast (Ryan Reynolds, Abigal Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Rachel Weisz).
So when it started out a little slow, I still held on to the belief that it would get better. Unfortunately, it never did. Instead of being charming, it was often dull.
Writer-director Adam Brooks’ plot moved along very slowly and I never felt invested in the characters or the final outcome. Definitely, Maybe is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but most of the laughs are derived from an 11-year-old who asks questions like, “What’s the boy word for slut?” and “What’s a threesome?” By the way, the answer is “a game adults play sometimes when they’re bored.”
Ryan Reynolds plays Will, the soon-to-be divorced dad of Maya (Breslin). Maya has just had her first sex-ed lesson in school and she wants to know about how her parents got together and the other women her dad dated before marrying her mom.
To spice things up a little, Will tells Maya the stories of his three serious girlfriends (one of whom is Maya’s mom) but changes their names so she doesn’t know which one is her mother. In the words of Maya, “it’s like a love story mystery.”
There’s Emily (Banks), the girl-next-door-type college sweetheart he leaves behind to volunteer for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign in New York. There’s also the intellectual Summer (Weisz), a journalist he meets in New York who actually was Emily’s childhood friend. Finally, there is April (Fisher), an apolitical, quirky woman he meets while volunteering for the Clinton campaign.
The main problem, in addition to being slow, is that it’s too easy too early to guess who Reynolds ends up with. It’s an easy guess, based on who he has the most chemistry with and who gets the most screen time.
I loved Isla Fisher in Wedding Crashers, when she played the crazy love interest of Vince Vaughn’s character. Here, she’s a lot more low-key and laid-back, which makes her much less interesting. She’s sweet and does have chemistry with Reynolds.
Speaking of Ryan Reynolds, while he is extremely handsome, he was not as appealing as I thought his character should have been. I didn’t really see anything alluring about Will that would make those women fall in love with him.
I appreciated the different approach to the formulaic romcom movie, but didn’t particularly like the presidential-campaign setting, although it was kind of neat to reminisce about how gigantic cellular phones used to be. I wanted this movie to surprise and intrigue me; unfortunately, it bored me more than anything else. ••
Movie Grade: C