"Definitely, Maybe" (2008) - Movie Review

How come they make New York life glorify as the happening life of every one? The loft, the buildings, the crowded streets with beauty of this chaotic existence appreciating it amongst the curses and once again you see the city becoming a character in one another movie, “Definitely, Maybe”. In many cases the film is an uncanny resemblance to “High Fidelity” only that this one is friendlier than that (“High Fidelity” of course is a class of its own in presenting its story). “Definitely, Maybe” cannot get sweeter but never gets too much, which makes us to live in the fantasy land believing for its reality.

The movie opening consists of our ring breaker (which is the term I think/came up for not able to seal the deal in a relationship) Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) listening to a perfect song for a street walk juicing out the events, people and the colour of New York. He is going to pick up his daughter Maya (Abigail Braislin) who just has received a sexual intercourse lecture at her school. In order avoid her continuous bombardment of questions, Will is forced to explain his relationship fiascos and in that wanted her to find who her mom is. And by the way he is going through divorce. Hence starts the tale of Will Hayes and his three lovely girls with whom he falls in love and the other party does that too. His home town sweet heart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), an upbeat love and peace independent April (Isla Fisher) and the experimental, life on no strings, Summer (Rachel Weisz). Of course we get to know a lot only two of those and I will leave it to the audience to figure that out.

If you are rolling your eyes and sinking in to the thought of how many more films like this we need to witness in this lifetime, hold on. Because we will be cased up more with films like this but the good part is that if it is done as well as this one, we can be relieved. Wake up!

“Definitely, Maybe” is a funny, considerably cocky and corny story of a handsome young man who with the virtue of movie making meets ultimately beautiful Apsaras from heaven. Seeing Will brushing up women like this makes me (What can you say, I am the loser guy like many of you!) wonder whether this is how the “New York Life” works up. And there you have director Adam Brooks successfully makes considerable pain look like eating a cake. Will meets up with every girl, has a relationship or an eye contact to woo every now and then, then breaks up, then again meets them up again when he is in another relationship and the story goes on. We never get tired of it because there is a credibility in which the characters strike that chord of harmony. There are no outlandish romantic side kicking lines but the opinions towards life and the beliefs, values each have and not have caves as a meaningful conversation, mainly for once we can see why they are talking and enjoying the other’s presence.

Ryan Reynolds apart from being “Boyishly”’ charming, does a commendable job of growing with the story. We see him as this super ambitious kid from Wisconsin cupping his hands over the glasses of an office to see something promising at that moment, to later realize what he really wants. Romantic movies generally leave most of the real boring normal routine of life because we would not want to see that but as those mundane routines are punctuated by unusual happenings along with the knowledge of the routine, we acknowledge that unusualness That is one more reason is that we see their location in their life making the film move on with a maturity it gains up over the characters. Of course the focus goes on with Will as he is the narrator of this story to his daughter. And I liked the representation of the culture of 90s, technology dominance at its cusp of achieving its glory and of course Nirvana. I guess the films can now be made on the “90s” as it would be done for 60s and 70s. Quite true that we have started to live the fast life and 10 years appears to be 30 years.

There is a customary ending which is pretty much expected and we are ready to forgive for what it is because Brooks by that time has done a very good job in giving something original escaping all the possibilities of being routine. Yet I would have loved for leaving as it is, Will still lost in relationship because in reality aren’t we all always lost when it comes to relationships? The film while saying that in a manner wherein we do not feel much pain than required to make an impact but not pierce enough to make it miserable. It is the one thing which completely balances off the genre we would have been fell for in cheesy movies. Because the real pain Will would have gone through in all this break ups would have been unimaginable and Brooks make it feel only a miniscule fraction of it. It is because it is a single guy’s fantasy of reality.