Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

29 April 2008

Definitely, Maybe, dir. Adam Brooks (2008)

NIKKI says:
Ryan Reynolds in a romantic comedy meant I was in. I still don't know how much I enjoyed the premise. Basically, Ryan and his wife are divorcing and his little daughter, played by Abigail Breslin, wants to know how he came to fall in love with her mother.

He proceeds to tell the girl three stories of his three great romances, and she has to pick which one is her mom. Slightly creepy, considering all the making out, but still...

Now, you would think that reliving this story might make him realise that he does indeed still love her mother and will perhaps amend whatever it is in their relationship that broke so severely. This, of course, would make the little girl happy, and isn't that whats all movies like this are about?

Well, not in this case. Here, we find out that the woman Ryan is divorcing and the woman he really, truly loves are two different women. This almost renders that third story superfluous, and it ends up meaning very little, if anything at all. I can't remember exactly what that story teaches Ryan, but I know it meant for some overlong scenes with Kevin Kline that could have been chopped to make this movie the 90 minutes it should have been.

Now, doesn't the fact that he ends up with another woman mean that he was never meant to be with the mom in the first place? And doesn't that then mean that the daughter was conceived within a partnership doomed from the outset? Nobody brought this up. The daughter was happy to send the mother off knowing the dad was supposed to be with someone else. I just don't think that works. And if it was playing with convention, it should have let me know somehow.

Still, Ryan Reynolds is always enjoyable to watch. And I did like the political setting. Ultimately, if didn't work because too much was going on, and the focus was all over the place, and I don't think it had a clear vision of what Ryan wanted and needed. The supposed great love he ends up with feels like just another turn down just another road, not necessarily the right one.

2.5/5

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