Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

Definitely, Maybe

2/5 This is the story of a disillusioned, soon-to-be divorced advertising executive who recounts his messy love life to his precocious daughter in the hope that, by piecing together the fragments, he might save his marriage. On top of this, he disguises the names of the women in his life and, as his various love affairs are revealed, his daughter tries to guess which of the pseudonymous women is her mother. It is through this double-layering that the writer/director has attempted to differentiate it from your average rom-com. You can see what he was hoping to do, namely tear the audience in two directions: holding them in a thrill of anticipation as they try to work out who will emerge as the mother, while simultaneously warming their cockles with the tomfooling antics of a blundering young fop with a heart of gold. The problem is you can see which one he is going to end up with from the off, and although there is the most unlikely of twists on the fertilisation front, what you knew would happen eventually does. The film opens with our hero Will (Ryan Reynolds), an all-American, starry-eyed young man who leaves his fiancée in a clapboard backwater and heads to New York to work on the ‘92 Clinton election campaign. We are taken through his various relationships: his college sweetheart, a sophisticated and beautiful journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz), and a politically apathetic scamp called April (Isla Fisher). The main problem with this film is that Will is highly unloveable; his foolish antics aren’t funny and his romantic side isn’t sincere. He is a cardboard cut-out, Americanised version of Hugh Grant and is unconvincing throughout. The film is redeemed somewhat by the stunning Weisz and a wonderful performance from Abigail Breslin as the daughter. Definitely, Maybe does break the old rom-com formula, but whether it needed breaking is certainly debatable.by Daniel Morgan

Check out our other content

Most Popular Articles