''Definitely, Maybe'' is a 2008

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typica ...

film written and directed by Adam Brooks, and starring

Ryan Reynolds Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian-American actor. He is one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time, with a worldwide box-office gross of over billion. He began his career starring in the Canadian teen ...

Isla Fisher Isla Lang Fisher (; born 3 February 1976) is an Australian actress and author. Born to Scottish parents in Oman, she moved to Australia at age six where she began appearing in television commercials. Fisher came to prominence for her portrayal ...

Rachel Weisz Rachel Hannah Weisz (; born 7 March 1970 ) is an English actress. She is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Rachel Weisz, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and a BAFTA Award. We ...

Elizabeth Banks Elizabeth Banks (born Elizabeth Irene Mitchell; February 10, 1974) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is known for playing Effie Trinket in ''The Hunger Games'' film series (2012–2015) and Gail Abernathy-McKadden in the ''Pitch Perfe ...

Abigail Breslin Abigail Kathleen Breslin (born April 14, 1996) is an American actress. She rose to prominence with the comedy-drama film ''Little Miss Sunshine'' (2006), for which she received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at ...

, and Kevin Kline. Set in New York City, the film is about a former political consultant who tries to help his daughter understand his impending divorce by telling her the story of his past romantic relationships and how he ended up marrying her mother. The film grossed $56 million worldwide.

Plot

Will Hayes works at an

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and is in the midst of a divorce from wife Sarah. After her first

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, Human sexual activity, sexual acti ...

class, his 10-year-old daughter Maya insists on hearing the story of how her parents met. Will gives in, but changes the names and some of the facts, leaving Maya to guess which of the women from his past is Sarah, her mother. In 1992, Will graduates from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

and leaves behind his college sweetheart, "Emily Jones", to work on the Bill Clinton campaign in New York City. There, he meets "April Hoffman", a fellow campaign staffer, and delivers a package from Emily to her college friend, "Summer Hartley". The package is revealed to be Summer's diary, which Will reads, learning she had a brief affair with Emily. Summer is dating her professor, Hampton Roth, but spontaneously kisses Will. He tells April his plan to propose to Emily, and rehearses his proposal; April replies, "Definitely, maybe." They go to her apartment where Will notices her many copies of ''

Jane Eyre ''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...

''. She explains that her father gave her a copy with a personal inscription shortly before he died, but the book was later lost. She has spent years searching secondhand bookstores to find it and collects any copy with an inscription. April and Will kiss, but he abruptly leaves. The following day Emily arrives but when Will tries to propose, she confesses that she slept with his roommate, and urges him to move on and pursue his ambitions. After Clinton is elected, Will opens a

political consulting Political consulting is a form of consulting that consists primarily of advising and assisting political campaigns. Although the most important role of political consultants is arguably the development and production of mass media (largely tele ...

firm, and stays in close touch with April as she travels the world. He encounters Summer, now a journalist and single, and they begin a relationship. April returns from abroad, planning to tell Will that she loves him, but discovers he is planning to propose to Summer. Will learns that Summer has written an article that will ruin his candidate's campaign. He asks her not to publish it, but she refuses, and Will ends their relationship. The article derails the campaign, losing Will his political career and friends. Years later, April reaches out to Will, who has fallen into depression. She throws Will a birthday party, reuniting him with his old colleagues, but he quietly leaves the party early. Will then drunkenly confesses to April that he loves her, leading to an argument about the state of their lives. Passing a bookstore, he finds the inscribed copy of ''Jane Eyre'' April's father gave her. He goes to April's apartment to give her the book but decides against it when he meets her boyfriend Kevin, who is living with her. Will runs into Summer who tells him she's pregnant and invites him to a party where he reunites with Emily, who has recently moved to New York City. In the present, Maya deduces that "Emily" is her mother. Maya hopes her parents will reunite, but Will assures Maya that she is the story's happy ending, before finalizing his divorce. Unpacking in his new apartment, Will discovers April's book. He brings it to her, apologizing for waiting so long, but she asks him to leave. At Maya's urging, Will realizes he is miserable without April, whose name he didn't change in the story like he did to "Emily"/Sarah and to "Summer", whose real name is Natasha. Will and Maya go to April's apartment, and he tries to explain his reasoning to her, but she does not let them inside. Waiting in front of the door, Maya encourages Will to tell April the story, while April overhears the conversation through intercom. As Will and Maya walk away, April runs after them. Will explains that he kept the book as the only thing he had left of her. April invites them in to tell her the story, and she and Will kiss.

Cast

Music

The film was scored by English composer

Clint Mansell Clinton Darryl Mansell (; born 7 January 1963) is an English musician, singer, and composer, born in Coventry. He served as the lead singer and multi-instrumentalist of alt-rock band Pop Will Eat Itself before embarking on a career as a film s ...

. Lakeshore Records released the score on March 18, 2008. All Music Guide reviewer William Ruhlmann praised the album as filled with "sweet, melodic numbers that often seem to lack only a lyric to turn them into pop songs". He also stated that it functioned as "light accompaniment to an equally light entertainment". A song from

Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...

, " Come as You Are", was featured during several scenes in the movie, as well as Nothing Lasts Forever by

Maroon 5 Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. It currently consists of lead vocalist Adam Levine, keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Jesse Carmichael, lead guitarist James Valentine (musician), James Valentine, drummer Matt ...

Release

In its opening weekend, the film grossed $9.8 million from 2,204 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #5 at the box office. It went on to gross $56 million worldwide. The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

June 24, 2008, with a widescreen transfer,

deleted scenes A deleted scene is footage that has been removed from the final version of a film or television show. There are various reasons why these scenes are deleted, which include time constraints, relevance, quality or a dropped story thread. A similar o ...

, two short featurettes, and a

commentary track An audio commentary is an additional audio track, usually digital, consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with a video. Commentaries can be serious or entertaining in nature, and can add informatio ...

by Reynolds and director Brooks.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of 70% based on reviews from 148 critics, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's consensus reads: "With a clever script and charismatic leads, ''Definitely, Maybe'' is a refreshing entry into the romantic comedy genre." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film has an average score of 59 out of 100 based on 33 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Dennis Harvey of ''Variety magazine'' called it "A pleasingly non-formulaic romantic seriocomedy, ''Definitely, Maybe'' has charm and some depth, even if it’s ultimately more a third-base hit than a home run." A.O. Scott of

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

called it "A nimble and winning little romance". Claudia Puig of

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

gave it a positive review and wrote: "It's generally enjoyable, amusing and more sophisticated than most films in this genre." Stephen Farber

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

gave a more mixed review but praised the cast: "The film is far from a complete washout, and this is chiefly a tribute to its immensely attractive and appealing cast. Ryan Reynolds proves to have the stuff of a true leading man." Caroline Siede of

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

reviewed the film in 2021 and called it "underrated" and noted it as a development in career of Ryan Reynolds as he "traded snark for sincerity." Siede said the plot was "essentially

How I Met Your Mother ''How I Met Your Mother'' (often abbreviated as ''HIMYM'') is an American sitcom, created by Craig Thomas and Carter Bays for CBS. The series, which aired from September 19, 2005 to March 31, 2014, follows the main character, Ted Mosby, and his ...

with a dash of High Fidelity" but praised the film for "breath ngnew life into old formulas without throwing the rest of the genre under the bus."

References

External links