Definitely, Maybe

Definitely, Maybe is a chick flick of the slit-your-wrists variety. If you weren’t depressed before watching, you will be afterwards. Not even the obligatory happy ending can save this one. There are some light-hearted moments, but these do nothing to make you any less depressed while watching it. In fact, they only serve to highlight just how depressing the rest of the film is.

By casting Ryan Reynolds (of Van Wilder fame) as the romantic lead and Abigail Breslin (of Little Miss Sunshine fame) as his daughter, you would expect that the film was light hearted and maybe a little off-beat. You would be wrong. It’s neither light hearted nor offbeat, but consists of three love stories, any one of which would have been enough for a chick flick, but all of which are designed to rip your heart out, break it into little pieces, set fire t to the pieces and then let a hurricane scatter the ashes. Come to think about it, if they showed that sequence in the movie it might have managed to save it.

Dodginess

Definitely, Maybe has almost no dodgy to speak of. Fortunately, this was saved with real news footage of Bill Clinton and his famous statement, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” This is fortunate as it manages to get the film a rating on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scale of 1. The dodgiest moment goes to the guy who made the trailer, and the way he managed to make the film appear to be a romantic comedy, by taking all the amusing moments in the film and splicing them together into one seamless show of false advertising. Well, it worked, and got me to watch the film, even though I don’t think anyone else should.

Rewatchability Rating

You have two choices about how often to watch this film. The first, and most definitely the most sane option is never. Of course, if you do choose to watch this film, there’s a good chance that Definitely, Maybe will make you seriously want to slit your wrists, so you’ll only be able to watch it once. The only left is to assign it a rating on the rewatchability scale, and seeing as I cannot condone watching this one ever, it wins the Anti-Nike.

Most Memorable Quote

At the time it happened, the most memorable quote in the movie was humorous. “This song is a cure for the will to live.” I can’t remember what the song was, but as the movie went on all I wanted to do was substitute the word film for song, and Definitely, Maybe would have had an internal quote about something that should have been applied to the film in which it was said. Ah, Irony.

Final Thoughts

I can only think of 2 reasons to watch Definitely, Maybe. The first is if you’re suicidal and need something to push you over the edge. The second is if you have a thing for Ryan Reynolds, and to be fair, if you’re harbouring any form of desire for Ryan Reynolds, you’re probably suicidal anyway. You’ve been warned.