Definitely, Maybe

UK Release: 8th February 2008

Watched on TV: Monday 13th June 2011

Rating: 12A

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 52mins

Tagline: Three relationships. Three disasters. One last chance.

IMDb Plot Summary: Will Hayes, a 30-something Manhattan dad is in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year old daughter, Maya, starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love. 

Will's story begins in 1992, as a young, starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the Clinton campaign. For Maya, Will relives his past as a idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics, and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women. 

Will hopelessly attempts a "PG" version of his story for his daughter ad changes the names so Maya has to guess who he finally married...

My Review: I actually didn’t know this was “from the makers of About A Boy and Bridget Jones’s Diary” until now. Which is weird as although I absolutely loved this film and I absolutely love those films, Definitely, Maybe felt completely different... which probably had something to do with it being American! 

And weirdly this film didn’t get such a great reception as the British classics. I, however found this film brilliant, charming, funny and geniunely exciting finding out which one woman was Maya’s mum... and Will’s love of his life. I found myself changing my guesses throughout the film - just like Maya!

In fact, I couldn’t fault it.The acting was lovely from Ryan Reynolds and of course, Abigail Breslin, who played Maya. Much more deep and complex than standard romantic comedies, Definitely, Maybe spanned years (I love films that do that!) and it was also mostly set in the 90‘s which, being a nineties kid, was fun to see as so often things are set in the 80’s or before. 

So, yeah... go see this film! It is, in retrospect, almost an American British rom-com, in that the characters are fully fleshed out beings that you really care about and the twists and turns of the film make for a great ‘love story mystery’!

Score: 8/10