DEFINITELY MAYBE

Romantic comedy

PRINCIPAL CAST MEMBERS
Ryan Reynolds: 30-something advertising executive Will Hayes
Abigail Breslin: his 10-year-old daughter Maya
Elizabeth Banks: Will's college sweetheart Emily
Isla Fisher: April, copy girl with Clinton’s election campaign
Rachel Weisz: Emily's old school chum Summer

REVIEW
The quirky title gives a hint as to what might follow: a different slant on the traditional romantic comedy. Usually there three people (one guy and two girls or the other way around) but this time there are four people involved. And we are supposed to figure out the correct combination of the two who finally pair up. Trouble is it takes far too long (almost 2 hours) and by that time a lot of us really don’t care anymore.

Although the acting by several of the women is pretty good the same cannot be said of the Will Hayes character. Nor is the movie very funny. Both these things are so-so at best.

CLASSIFICATION
for sexual content including some frank dialogue, language and smoking.

FOR NITPICKERS ONLY
 Will begins relating his story to Maya by telling her this all started “back in 1992, before cell phones and email”. The very next shot belies that statement as we see someone talking on a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. This so-called “brick” was first introduced in 1983, weighed almost 2 pounds and cost a mere $3,995. As a matter of fact, the NEC Cellstar 500 series was much in use back in 1992 and was fairly small, only about twice as big as current cellphones.

 Regarding email, it started back in 1965, albeit in a limited fashion, as a way for multiple users of a mainframe computer to communicate. By 1977 email was so popular the US Postal Service said it posed a significant threat to First Class mail volumes and revenue. And by 1992 people already had to deal with the ugly side of email: SPAM, fraud, and phishing so it was well and truly part of our world back then.