Movie Review: Definitely Maybe

I would say this is one of the most immaturely made movies I have ever watched in my life. The movie starts off with Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds), a successful Manhattan-based advertising executive and father of 10-year-old Maya (Abigail Breslin) in the midst of divorce proceedings. The only sunshine of his life is the two days every week he spends with his daughter.

One day as he goes to pick up his daughter from school, she has just had a sex education class and starts questioning him about his past life. She is not content with him just glossing over the story but wants to know ever little detail and she wants to know it NOW. Seeing no other alternative, Hayes relents and starts his narrative, which continues through the movie.

The rest of the movie is about how he started off as a young idealistic politician, who moves to New York from Wisconsin to work for the presidential campaign of none other than Bill Clinton. Narrating his memoirs to his daughter, Will relives his past life as a small towner learning to be street smart in a big city and related an account of his romantic relationships with three very different women.

In a bid to be subtle, Will changes the identities of the women in the story and tells Maya to guess who her mother was. Is she Will's college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks)? Is she his best friend and confidante, April (Isla Fisher)? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz)? In the movie 10-year-old Maya displays maturity beyond her age and puts together pieces of her dad's romantic puzzle and finally helps him to understand who his true love is. The movie doesn’t stop at that, Maya makes Will go to his true love and confess to her and then the movie ends on a happy note. They lived happily ever after….

In my opinion, Definitely, Maybe isn't a particularly good movie. It is stupid for anyone to expect a 10-year-old to display such maturity as the character Maya. Come on which sex education class for 10-year-olds teaches them about ‘penis’, ‘intercourse’, ‘slut’ etc? And which parent would confide in their 10-year-old the sordid details of their past? These details are what makes this movie a total disaster, despite good and convincing performances by the entire team and above average screenplay and direction.

Direction: Adam Brooks
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and others