Confession: I actually want to see Definitely, Maybe. If it weren't opening on Valentine's Day, which is on Thursday, which is when Lost comes on, I might make my boyfriend go see it with me on opening night. I realize this makes me lame, but I don't care if you judge me. And now I think I've got a little ammunition to defend myself. The first five minutes of the movie are up online, and they're actually pretty good. Cheesy, yes, but pretty good.
If you've somehow missed the gazillion commercials for it, Definitely, Maybe is about a dad (Ryan Reynolds) about to get divorced who is forced by his adorable daughter (Abigail Breslin) to tell her the story of how he met her mother. He changes the names and some of the details and makes the daughter figure out for herself who the mother is, making it, as she calls it, “a love story mystery.” So within the dad's story, we see three women (Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Banks) who could all conceivably be the girl's mom. Cue the sappy music, and hand me the tissues.
The first five minutes, available here, really just set up the whole storytelling concept and show a lot of moments that are in the trailer. But it also includes the hilarious impetus for the story to begin with: the dreaded “sex ed day” at the middle school. It's chaos, of course, when the parents come to pick up their kids and the kids are full of questions. Come on, don't you want to see a girl yell at her mom, “You had sex with dad, didn't you? Didn't you? I hate you I hate you I hate you!”
I know this kind of movie isn't exactly for everyone, but Definitely, Maybe seems like it could be a teeny cut above of the usual rom-com nonsense. If nothing else, it resembles my favorite sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, in its concept, and that's never a bad thing. Check out the video for yourself and decide whether or not I'm crazy.
