Adorable, Surprisingly (my review)

I recently wrote a review of Definitely, Maybe on my blog Rom Coms and the Real World: http://realworldromcom.blogspot.com/2012/11/review_11.html

I take movie watching very seriously. Probably too seriously. If my friends and I venture to the movie theater or rent a movie, I have strict no talking policy. I won’t even respond if someone asks, “What did he say?” If you missed it, too bad. (This might be why no one wants to watch movies with me). The one time I make an exception to my movie watching policy is when I’m watching a movie on TV. Then pretty much all rules go out the window. Unlike at the movie theater or video store where I spend money on a particular film I really want to see, a movie on TV is just the least objectionable option. Scenes are edited out, commercials awkwardly break-up the film’s rhythm, and those lovely little commercials can add up to an hour to the movie’s run time. It’s easy to channel surf during the commercial breaks, leave to make a snack, or decide now might be a good time to reorganize your DVD collection.

This is how I first started watching Definitely, Maybe on FX yesterday. I actually watched the first five minutes thinking I was about to watch The Proposal, another Ryan Reynold’s rom com. Definitely, Maybe is essentially How I Met Your Mother the movie. About-to-be-divorced dad Will Hayes (Reynolds) agrees to tell his daughter (Abigail Breslin) the story of how he fell in love with her mother. That story involves Will’s three great loves- Emily (Elizabeth Banks), the college sweetheart, April (Isla Fisher), the opinionated friend, and Summer (Rachel Weisz), the free spirited journalist.

I started to watch this movie in the halfhearted way I watch many movies on TV. I heated up last night’s couscous for lunch and I chatted with my roommate about her plans for the day. About halfway through, though, something started to happened. I no longer walked away during the commercials. I closed my computer and turned my full attention to the TV screen. Without even realizing it, I was totally invested in this unassuming little romantic comedy.

Definitely, Maybe is a somewhat treacherous premise for a rom com. It’s got a precocious child, a Ted Moseby-like leading man, and three female leads, which in the rom com world often equals three over-the-top, irrational women. Definitely, Maybe manages to deftly avoid these pitfalls. Abigail Breslin’s character, Maya, toes the line of being too cheeky, but brings some nice emotional depth to the movie’s final stretch. Reynolds is surprisingly funny in an understated way and has believable chemistry with all four of his leading ladies. There are some limits to his range as an actor, but the direction largely hides these, allowing Reynolds to shine as both a comic and dramatic presence.

It’s pretty common for romantic comedies to give the male protagonist conflicting love interests. What’s not common, though, is to make them all...

Read the full review at http://realworldromcom.blogspot.com/2012/11/review_11.html