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‘Definitely, Maybe’ is a Refreshing Romantic Comedy With Different Twist
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Cynics are sure to see the setting of part of the action of Definitely, Maybe in the campaign headquarters of Bill Clinton as a blatant pitch for the Hillary Clinton presidency. However, don’t let what could be a minor discomfort, depending on how you feel about the senator (or, the former president, for that matter) keep you from giving this refreshing romantic comedy a try.
Writer Adam Brooks has taken some well-thought-out liberties with the genre to offer some complexity to the typical tropes of a young man’s coming-of-age, his search for true love and his reconciliation of youthful idealisms with mature realities. An unusual bedtime story for his precocious and inquisitive daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), takes the newly-divorced Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) back in time to when he was looking for “the real thing” in love, in politics and in work.
Will comes to New York, committed to his college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks) and to putting the former Arkansas governor in the White House. Both commitments are challenged from the get-go by revelations of Clinton’s unsavory past and by two women with minds of their own about politics, life and sex.
April (Isla Fisher) is “copy girl” at the campaign headquarters, and Summer (Rachel Weisz) is a former “close” friend of Emily’s who, despite being in a relationship with her thesis advisor (Kevin Kline), makes a pass at Will.
One of these women is Maya’s mother. Confused and sad about her parents’ parting, Maya wants to know the journey her father’s heart took to her mother and to his decision that she wasn’t the right person for him.
With curiosity, pain, wonder and delight Maya hears about Will’s principled yearnings His struggles with temptation and decisions to move on from each of the women, only to be reunited at different moments in his peripatetic life, that includes a political consulting business, working on a former Clinton campaign worker’s run for governor and currently landing accounts for an ad agency.
Maya starts second-guessing which of the women could be her mother, regretfully crossing off one name, then another, as it looks less and less likely that they are the one. Even with the final chapter of the story and Will’s explanation of the “happy ending” he promised, the puzzle is definitely not solved.
Although Reynolds has the look of a Brady Bunch alumnus, he and the rest of the cast have depths well and engagingly plumbed through the course of this sweetly winning film. Universal Pictures release, rated PG-13 sexual content.
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