"Definitely, Maybe" as good it needs to be, no more

Here's the good and the bad on the romantic comedy "Definitely, Maybe," in a nutshell. Writing this review, a couple of weeks after seeing the movie, I honestly couldn't remember how it ended. Maybe that's good, because it means the film doesn't follow an utterly predictable path, as so many romantic comedies tend to do. And maybe that's bad, because the really good stuff tends to stick around in our memories, rather than sending us flipping through notebooks. "Definitely, Maybe" is definitely sweet, but it's also ... well, a maybe.

Written and directed by Adam Brooks (who most recently co-wrote "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" and "Wimbledon"), "Definitely, Maybe" is fairly high-concept, as romantic comedies go. Will (Ryan Reynolds) is the pleasant, soon-to-be-divorced father of an inquisitive 10-year-old named Maya (Abigail Breslin), who one evening asks her dad about how he met and fell in love with her mother. Surprised by her interest, Will begins to tell her a story set 16 years ago, when he was a young man newly arrived in New York to work on the Clinton presidential campaign. Soon he's juggling three women in his life: reliable college sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), ambitious journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz) and dippy free spirit April (Isla Fisher). Will the blond, the brunette, or the redhead turn out to be Maya's mom? And, once we know her identity, will she go through with the divorce?

It's a story structure that feels fresh, and the setting of early-'90s politics is often gleefully amusing (yes, Gennifer Flowers pops up). But the casting sometimes feels off. Reynolds is a good-looking graduate of horrible teen movies ("Van Wilder," which I remember way too clearly — sometimes the bad stuff sticks with you, too); he's competent but utterly bland. The talented Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") is mostly wasted here. Maya spends most of the movie listening eagerly and asking annoyingly precocious questions. (I could have done without the moment in which Will and Maya discuss threesomes, in a winking G-rated way.)

The three Is-She-Or-Isn't-She ladies fare better: Banks is warm and likable; Weisz brings her usual fiery smarts; Fisher her metallic-voiced, offbeat cuteness. And, just as you're getting lulled into the general pleasantness of the movie midway through, Kevin Kline turns up (uncredited) and swipes it, like a roguish dog who just happens to be in the right place when a chicken leg falls from the table. As the swaggering writer Hampton Roth, a much-older suitor of Summer, he's got glasses hanging from his head and a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, and he's so hammy you could serve him with eggs on a plate. Kline's clearly having a ball — it's as if he's giving the kids an over-the-top acting seminar — and he throws the movie wildly off-balance, in a delicious way. And then he disappears, and we're back in Pleasantville.

There's really nothing terribly wrong with "Definitely, Maybe," but there's nothing strikingly right about it, either; it's as good as it needs to be, and no more. It'll do in a Valentine's Day pinch, until something better comes along — or until it's forgotten.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com