Definitely, Maybe is a romantic comedy film directed by Adam Brooks starring Ryan Reynolds (of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place’s fame), Rachel Weisz, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and Abigail Breslin (Nim’s Island).
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin in "Definitely Maybe"
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a 30-something father and has a 10-year-old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin) who lives with her mother but is with him once or twice a week. Will is in a midst of a divorce when his daughter questions him about his life before marriage after her first sex-ed class. Will changes the names of the women he had relationship with in order to create a love mystery so Maya has to guess which of the three women is her mom.
Back in 1992, Will is a naively optimistic and aspiring politician who moves away from his college sweetheart, Emily (Elizabeth Banks) from Wisconsin to New York to work on the Bill Clinton campaign. She gives him a parcel and asks him to give it to her friend Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz), a reporter. At work, Will meets April Hoffman (Isla Fisher), the copy girl for the campaign. Before bringing the parcel to Summer, Will opens it after being persuaded by his roommate only to find it is Summer’s diary. Encouraged by his roommate, he reads it, and comes across pages describing a love affair between Emily and Summer. He visits Summer to bring the diary, and meets her roommate and sometimes-lover, her college professor, a famous writer named Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). After Will leaves and when he is moving away, Summer abruptly stops him and make-out with him.
April and Will meets outside work as both of them buy cigarettes from the same store. As both of them are smoking, April tells Will that it is her birthday and he offers to help her to celebrate. Instead, April wants Will to accompany her to go to a club as she does not feel like going there alone. When April finds out about Will’s plan to propose to Emily, she volunteers to be Emily so he can practice his proposal. April is taken aback by Will’s words, and replies, “Definitely, Maybe.” They go back to her apartment, where April has multiple copies of Jane Eyre in her collection, explaining that her father gave her a copy with an inscription in the front shortly before he died, and the book was shortly lost, therefore, every time she passes by a bookstore, she will buy a copy of Jane Eyre, hoping to find the lost copy that her father gave her. After their lengthy but empty conversation, Will and April eventually kiss, with Will leaving quickly and berating himself.
Emily visits and Will proposes in the park but he could say a word, Emily turns him down by telling him she slept with Will’s roommate, Charlie back in Wisconsin. Will becomes heartbroken. As time goes by very quickly and Bill Clinton becomes president of the United States, and Will moves up from a toilet-paper man to become speech-writer for a candidate to be Governor of New York. April travels the world, and she and Will become pen-pals and they keep in touch by writing letters to each other. Eventually, with the encouragement of Roth (who is dying), Will and Summer become romantically involved. This ends when she writes unfavorably about the politician Will works for. Will loses his jobs, his girlfriends and his best friend.
Will starts to drink heavily as he hates his job after finding out the president he has campaigned for is involved in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In a drunken rant, he confesses romantic feelings to April, but in the process, April tells Will that he is a mess and he responds back by telling her to “go to life rehab”.
Will eventually finds the copy of Jane Eyre that April’s father gave her. He goes to give it to her, but decides against it when he finds out that April and her boyfriend, Kevin are living together.
At a cafe, Summer and Will bump into each other and she invites him to a party. Emily, Will’s old ex-girlfriend, also attends the party, as she now lives in New York. They end up reconciling their relationship. Emily turns out to be Maya’s mother and Will’s ex-wife. Will signs the divorce papers served to him without a second thought.
Maya is glad that she figured out the story, but also realizes that her father still has feelings for April, as even though Will changed the names of Emily (Sarah in real life), and Summer (Natasha in real life), he did not change April’s name.
Encouraged by Maya, who wants her father to be happy, Will goes to Brooklyn to find April together with his daughter. The movie ends with Will confessing he held on to the copy of Jane Eyre because it was the only thing he had of hers. Maya and Will go to April’s apartment to reconcile, and the movie ends with April jumping into Will’s arms to kiss him.
Overall, even though Will’s life is depicted as complicated, this is definitely a romantic comedy that you should watch — no maybe. Great film to watch.
My ratings: 8 out of 10.
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