Definitely Not
The Ryan Reynolds romantic comedy is too bland to compete with this week’s foreign fare
By Andy Klein
An argument can be made that, since art doesn’t exist in a vacuum, every movie has within it some sort of inherent political/social content. This does not exclude, say, Chuck Jones’s Duck! Rabbit! Duck! or the History Channel’s Modern Marvels: Cheese – both of which I heartily recommend – though the significance in such cases may not be worthy of much study. (A plea to outlaw recreational hunting? An apologia for the dairy industry?)
It’s not exactly breaking news that non-Hollywood films are likelier to have explicit political concerns, which is why the presence of a historical/political backdrop in the slick, new romantic comedy Definitely, Maybe feels so surprising. The entire story is solidly anchored in the specifics of Democratic Party politics; and, while the Dems are hardly painted as free from corruption or hypocrisy, there are no obligatory “both sides are essentially the same” moments.
Ryan Reynolds stars as New York political-operative-turned-ad-man Will Hayes, who has just received his final divorce papers. When he arrives to pick up his 10-year-old daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), he finds her school in a total uproar. Apparently, most parents consider 10 to be too young an age for the kind of sex-ed class the kids have had that day. (Would presumably sophisticated, upper-middle-class New Yorkers really be thrown into such a tizzy by this? Do they think their kids haven’t already picked up two-thirds of the information – and even more misinformation – from TV and the Internet?)
Maya seems to be handling the birds-and-bees material pretty comfortably, but it provokes her curiosity about Dad’s romantic history and the circumstances of her own conception. She forces him to tell her about the three women he’s been in love with, but he gives them fake names so that Maya will have to guess which one is the woman she knows as her mom.
Most of the film is Will’s visualization of the story he’s telling: Since we see the women’s real faces, it can’t be Maya’s visualization; since we hear them addressed by their pseudonyms, it can’t be his literal flashback. Which means: It might be nothing more than complete bullshit that Will is making up. Or it might be expurgated beyond recognition. (Why else name the hero after the bluenose who famously enforced Hollywood’s production code in the mid-’30s?)
For the record, the three women represent three types: Summer (Rachel Weisz) is an intellectual; April (Isla Fisher), a “free spirit”; and Emily (Elizabeth Banks), a more conventional “nesting” type. Emily is, in fact, so uninteresting that it’s hard to imagine what Will finds attractive beyond her standard-issue Hollywood-babe good looks.
Even more to the point, it’s hard to see what any of them see in him. Reynolds has acquitted himself nicely in a wide range of roles, from Blade: Trinity and Waiting … through Smokin’ Aces and The Nines, but his standard-issue Hollywood-guy good looks – he’s Greg Kinnear with less zip – are forgettably bland, unless he’s given something to work with, which writer/director Adam Brooks fails to do.
The film gets points for resisting one painfully predictable, clichéd payoff (about penguins) it has ham-
fistedly set up. (Betcha the payoff was in some draft or another.) On the other hand, the single funniest line in the whole thing (uttered by an unadvertised Kevin Kline) is a decades-old – maybe even centuries-old – Jewish joke. Its example highlights how limp the rest of the gags are.
My colleague Bill Krohn has brilliantly pointed out that the structural/narrative strategy of Definitely, Maybe is a twist on that of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1949 Oscar-winner A Letter to Three Wives. (Man, I wish I’d thought of that.) This connection indeed makes Brooks’s film more interesting. But it doesn’t make it better.
Two foreign films opening this week have political backdrops that more strongly affect their stories. To label French director André Téchiné’s The Witnesses as an “AIDS drama” might be unfair pigeonholing. As always, Téchiné is interested in human intimacy, with a particular focus on families (or, at least, family-like groups). Still, the particulars here are irrevocably tied to a specific crisis during a specific period.
Children’s book author Sarah (Emmanuelle Béart) is married to police detective Mehdi (Sami Bouajila). She’s having a difficult time writing her first novel, and it becomes more difficult with the arrival of their first child. Sarah seems almost devoid of maternal affection; the baby is an intruder and a nuisance. Mehdi may be more loving, but there is something ominous about the pair not bothering to name him for weeks or months – as though they’re still within a trial period and might choose to return him.
Sarah is good friends with Adrien (Michel Blanc), her doctor, who has fallen hard for a handsome, recently arrived young man named Manu (Johan Libéreau). Adrien claims to have accepted that Manu is not romantically interested in him, but, as always in such situations, he carries a sense of disappointment that could easily turn to jealousy and resentment – which is exactly what happens when he finds out that Manu has started a passionate sexual relationship with purportedly straight “tough guy” Mehdi.
Almost lost within the background noise of the story are passing references to the mysterious new illness erupting in America. Adrien becomes deeply involved in a battle against AIDS, but the disease doesn’t otherwise affect the characters until one of them develops lesions. Suddenly, everything we have seen takes on a terrifying new dimension. Minor indiscretions now have major repercussions.
Téchiné – best known in the U.S. for Wild Reeds, My Favorite Season, and Les Voleurs, all masterpieces – is interested in capturing both the period and the impact of AIDS, but, as always, his perceptions resonate beyond that limited scope. As written, none of the characters is entirely likable: Sarah seems cold; Adrien behaves at times with irresponsibility that verges on the criminal; Mehdi is a hypocrite; Manu is casually tactless, a sneak and an exploiter. It is a huge credit to the actors that we end up caring about these deeply flawed individuals.
Even more explicitly political is Cao Hamburger’s The Year My Parents Went on Vacation – Brazil’s official entry for this year’s Oscars – about Mauro (Michel Joelsas), a soccer-crazed 10-year-old, who, in 1970, is sent to live with his Jewish grandfather in Sao Paulo, when his activist parents are forced to go into hiding from the country’s repressive regime. Unfortunately, his grandfather has died that very day; with his parents’ whereabouts unknown, Mauro is forced to live with Granddad’s neighbor, a grumpy old man named Shlomo (Germano Haiut).
Hamburger’s movie nicely fulfills its low-key sentimental ambitions. It’s neither striking nor ultimately memorable, but it provides a pleasant diversion, a slighter take on such grumpy-old-man-bonds-with-kid films as Claude Berri’s The Two of Us (1969).
Definitely, Maybe. Written and directed by Adam Brooks. With Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Derek Luke, and Kevin Kline. Opens Friday citywide.
The Witnesses. Directed by André Téchiné. Screenplay by André Téchiné, Laurent Guyot, and Viviane Zingg. With Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Béart, Sami Bouajila, Johan Libéreau, and Constance Dollé. Opens Friday at Laemmle’s Sunset 5.
The Year My Parents Went on Vacation. Directed by Cao Hamburger. Screenplay by Claudio Galperin, Braulio Mantovani, Anna Muylaert, and Cao Hamburger; story by Claudio Galperin and Cao Hamburger. With Michel Joelsas, Germano Haiut, Daniela Piepszyk, Liliana Castro, and Caio Blat. Opens Friday at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, Laemmle’s Town Center 5, and Laemmle’s One Colorado.
2008-02-14
Published: 02/13/2008
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