Definitely, Maybe does several things to flip the conventions of romantic comedy on their head
and avoid the pitfalls of cliche that have rendered so many Katherine Heigl and Jennifer Aniston
vehicles unwatchable. First, it uses a male protagonist, which may seem like a small thing, but it
isn't. Rom-coms are based on a strict template dating back to Jane Austen, and even when
they're written and directed by men, the reigning assumption is that the lead character has to be a
woman, because that's the target audience. But it's a silly assumption. Are women only
interested in female troubles of the heart? When they watched When Harry Met
Sally . . . , did
they tune out for Harry's scenes? Indeed, one of the reasons for that film's enduring appeal is that
it sprang from a serious inquiry by two men into the reasons for their romantic failures, and it
features two equally balanced protagonists, one from each gender. Jane Austen's template may
be the most convenient, but it isn't exclusive.
The other key switch in Definitely, Maybe is that the central relationship isn't romantic.
It's the much more emotionally charged connection between a father and his young daughter, when dad
and mom are divorcing and the little girl is trying to understand what's happened to the secure
world she used to know. As the film unfolds, it becomes obvious that both parents are devoted to
their kid, but not so much to each other. So where's the romance?
That last question is the essence of romantic comedy, but Definitely, Maybe asks it from a
contemporary perspective in which the odds don't favor a successful marriage and happily ever
after is a lousy bet. "I know love isn't a fairy tale", young Maya Hayes tells her dad. As a child of
divorce, she's learned it the hard way. Now she wants the real story.
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) is a thirty-something ad executive in Manhattan. On a day in 2008
when a messenger delivers his final divorce decree to his office for signature, it's also his turn to
pick up his ten-year-old daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), from school. When Will arrives,
there's pandemonium in the halls. A frank and explicit lesson about the realities of human
reproduction has electrified Maya's class, some of whom are eagerly recounting the gory details
to other students in the hallway, while others rush to the parents picking them up and demand to
know whether they really do that. Maya approaches her father with calm intensity. The lesson
has ignited a tinderbox of questions gathering inside her. She wants to know how her parents met and
fell in love. (The underlying agenda, of course, is the same one shared by almost all children of
divorce: to discover what might bring them back together.)
After an evening of sparring with Maya in the new apartment where he's still unpacking his
boxes, Will finally relents and agrees to tell his daughter the story, but with conditions. He was
involved with several women ("What's the boy word for 'slut'?" asks a shocked Maya), and he'll
change their names and some facts, and she'll have to guess which one turns out to be her
mother.
In 1992, Will leaves his blonde college sweetheart, Emily (Elizabeth Banks), at the University of
Wisconsin in Madison for a two-month summer job working on the Clinton campaign in New
York. Emily gives him a book to return to her old friend, Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz), who
is worldly, brunette and, at the moment, dating one of her professors (Kevin Kline, effortlessly
hilarious). While doing grunt work at the campaign for his motor-mouthed boss, Gareth (Adam
Ferrara), Will meets April (Isla Fisher), one of the few people working for the campaign who
actually gets paid. A redhead, April is a confirmed cynic. She's also a searcher—for what, she
doesn't yet know.
By using women with three different hair colorations, writer-director Adam Brooks isn't trying
for anything symbolic, and he certainly isn't giving any clues about Maya's parentage (her hair is
is closer to her father's color). He's just being a good storyteller by making each of the three
women in Will's life visually distinctive and instantly recognizable. Over the course of six years,
Will meets, parts, grows close and draws away from all of them. In one form or another he
proposes to each one, but there are always complications and unexpected turns. Not the least of
them is Will himself, who, like many people in their twenties, is realizing that what he thought he
wanted isn't anything like what he expected. The idealism that drew him to politics doesn't
survive dealing with actual politicians (the Monica Lewinsky scandal is the last straw), and an
initially successful consulting firm that he starts with a fellow campaign volunteer (Derek Luke)
is one of the casualties. So, too, is his relationship with one of the three women. But like all of
them, she keeps reappearing.
Smart kid that she is, Maya figures out which one is her mother, just before the lady in question
shows up the next morning to take her daughter to the zoo. But the film can't end there, because
romantic comedies don't end with a divorce. Listening to her father's story has also revealed to
Maya where her father's heart really inclines (other than her, of course), and she even
accompanies him (which, as the object of affection points out, gives Will a really unfair
advantage, because she can't just shoo him off). To the extent rom-coms are fairy tales,
Definitely, Maybe provides a make-believe ending for the age of divorce: one in which the
split is completely amicable, the kid not only accepts what's happened, but even chooses the
replacement mom (yeah, that could happen), and she just happens to be available and waiting in
the wings.
Definitely, Maybe is a "catalog" title in the strict sense of the term, but since it's recent
enough to have been completed on a digital intermediate, the usual concerns about Universal catalog titles
don't apply. Universal's 1080p, VC-1-encoded Blu-ray appears to have been sourced from the
digital files, which usually ensures that what appears on the disc matches what was released to
theaters. Cinematographer Florian Ballhaus (son of frequent Scorsese collaborator Michael
Ballhaus) subtly shifted the visual style for the various time periods depicted in the film. For the
New York City of 1992, when Will first arrives, the image is somewhat grainier and gritty,
reflecting the era just before the Guiliani clean-up and the Clinton-era economy revived the city's
fortunes. As the years move forward toward 1998 (when Maya would have been born), the
palette becomes more saturated and the image becomes smoother and richer. In the film's present
day, when reality has set in, the imagery is naturalistic (although, since this is Hollywood,
naturalism is never entirely natural).
Detail is sufficiently well rendered that you can make out the changing contents of the Two Guys
deli where Will buys cigarettes. (In the "Changing Times" featurette, the production designer
talks about how an establishment of this sort evolved during the Nineties.) Street settings and
scenes in Central Park reveal the level of detail in objects and backgrounds that are indicative of
a first-rate Blu-ray presentation. Compression artifacts were not an issue, and if anyone thinks
they see any sort of filtering or artificial sharpening (I didn't), they should take it up with the DI colorist,
not the Blu-ray technicians.
Like many comedies, Definitely, Maybe is dialogue-driven, and the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is
largely front-centered. However, the film makes effective use of several key musical selections,
and the track takes advantage of the full speaker array to let them breathe. A notable example is
"Everyday People" by Sly and the Family Stone, which plays over an artfully assembled title
montage of Will walking through Manhattan and fills the listening space the way it's supposed to
be filling Will's head through his iPod earbuds. A birthday party for Will makes the appropriate
amount of noise, and a smoking "bet" in the rain between Will and April supplies a nicely
romantic ambiance to accompany the dialogue. The mix effectively distinguishes between the
dialogue onscreen and the occasional intrusions from Maya and Will commenting in the present.
All of it is clearly rendered. The serviceable underscore was composed by Clint Mansell, who
composed the score for Black Swan.
Commentary with Director Adam Brooks and Actor Ryan Reynolds: Brooks and
Reynolds reminisce casually with frequent pauses. While an occasional anecdote proves
interesting (usually about Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin or Kevin Kline), the commentary
offers little new insight into the story, Reynolds' approach to the role or Brooks's
directing technique.
Deleted Scenes (SD; 2.35:1, non-enhanced; 5:43): There are four short scenes.
The most intriguing would have shown that, as part of the life-change associated with his divorce,
Will Hayes also left his job in advertising.
Creating a Romance (SD; 1.78:1, enhanced; 12:28): This is a professional but
low-key EPK, featuring interviews with Reynolds, Brooks, Breslin, Banks, Fisher, Weisz, Luke
and producers Lisa Chasin and Bobby Cohen.
The Changing Times of Definitely, Maybe (SD; 1.78:1, enhanced; 5:07):
Brooks and the principal cast, plus costume designer Gary Jones and production designer Stephanie
Carroll discuss the changing look of the film as the story shifts from its present day in
2008 to its flashback period, which begins in 1992 and runs for roughly six years during a
time of enormous change in fashion, music and the City of New York.
In another, more famous film about a New York ad man getting a divorce, the couple's child
didn't take it so well. Some of the most memorable scenes in Kramer vs. Kramer showed young
Billy Kramer struggling to make sense of his shattered family and often lashing out at his father
from anger and frustration. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with the impact of divorce on
young children can appreciate the accuracy with which Robert Benton's film captured these
feelings, which often influence the rest of a person's life. One of the impressive magic tricks
performed by Definitely, Maybe is to airbrush all of these potential downers out of the
picture, in part by clever storytelling, but mostly through the screen chemistry established by Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin,
who convincingly create a father-daughter relationship that fathers and
daughters everywhere might envy, divorce or no. Idealized characters aren't such a bad thing.
They show us what we might be. Highly recommended.
As part of its 100th Anniversary this year, Universal Studios Home Entertainment will offer re-issues of catalog titles, and the Definitely, Maybe Blu-ray will arrive in the May wave. This romantic comedy focuses on the relationship between a political consultant ...
