Tagline: Three relationships. Three disasters.
Will, a 30-something Manhattan dad in the midst of a divorce, is surprised when his 10-year-old daughter, Maya (Breslin), starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love.
His story begins in 1992, as a young, starry-eyed aspiring politician who moves to New York from Wisconsin in order to work on the presidential campaign. For Maya, Will relives his past as an idealistic young man learning the ins and outs of big city politics, and recounts the history of his romantic relationships with three very different women.
Will hopelessly attempts a gentler version of his story for his daughter and changes the names so Maya has to guess who is the woman her dad finally married. Is her mother Will’s college sweetheart, the dependable girl-next-door Emily? Is she his longtime best friend and confidante, the apolitical April (Fisher)? Or is she the free-spirited but ambitious journalist Summer?
As Maya puts together the pieces of her dad’s mystery love story, she begins to understand that love is not so simple or easy. And as Will tells her his tale, Maya helps him understand that it’s definitely never too late to go back… and maybe find a happy ending.
Mixing Politics and Romance: Definitely, Maybe is Greenlit
Definitely, Maybe was born a few years ago, when writer / director Adam Brooks decided to pen a love story that spanned more than one decade. “There used to be a tradition of movies that took place over a long period of time,” the filmmaker says, “and what I loved about them was how much you would get invested in the characters because of the long span of the story.” The romantic comedy Brooks envisioned, along with its unusual twist of a male protagonist driving the story, was given a complicated setting: the world of politics.
“I like the tradition of romantic comedies that have a bigger backdrop than just the love story that’s going on-a movie like Broadcast News, for example,” adds Brooks. “I always wanted to do a story about a young man coming to the big city with all his hopes and dreams.”
In the screenplay, Brooks’ main character, Will Hayes, is a soon-to-be-divorced dad who relives his early years as an aspiring politician, while he tries to explain to his 10-year-old daughter how he came to marry the woman he is now divorcing: her mother.
As a screenwriter, Brooks had previously collaborated with the U.K.-based Working Title Films on several projects, including Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Wimbledon and French Kiss. His long-time collaborators approached him with the idea of not only writing, but also directing his next romantic comedy. They agreed it would-in no way-be generic or formulaic.“They’re my movie home,” Brooks describes. “I write with total confidence and trust when I’m working with them. And I know that when you’re developing a movie with Working Title, there’s a very good chance that it’s going to get made.”
The production company, headed by Eric Fellner and Tim Bevan, has recently produced such films as Atonement, United 93, Mr. Bean’s Holiday, Love Actually, The Interpreter, Notting Hill and O Brother, Where Art Thou? and retains long, continuous creative collaborations with such talent as Richard Curtis, Hugh Grant, Cate Blanchett, Keira Knightley, the Coen Brothers, Colin Firth, Rowan Atkinson and Emma Thompson, among many others.
It has remained important for Fellner and Bevan to offer filmmakers, as Fellner summarizes, “studio resources with the filmmaking attitude of an independent.” Brooks’ latest project was no exception. “If you find talented people-writers or directors or actors-and you work with them on a regular basis,” explains Fellner “it just goes like an incredible shorthand with a trust that develops.”
The characters in Brooks’ script for Definitely, Maybe appealed to the producers, who enjoyed the fact that the story was not just about how two people fall in love, with the concomitant pitfalls that keep them apart. “I liked the idea of trying to build a film around a number of relationships, not just one,” Fellner states.
Working Title’s Liza Chasin, who served as executive producer on such films as Pride & Prejudice and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, had worked with Brooks on eight projects and would serve as executive producer on Definitely, Maybe. She describes the decision for Brooks to direct as an easy one, surmising, “It was a natural progression in the relationship that he was going to direct the next project.”
Fellner agreed that Brooks, who had previously helmed Almost You, starring Griffin Dunne and Brooke Adams, as well as The Invisible Circus, starring Cameron Diaz, was the correct choice to helm Definitely, Maybe. “He came up with it; he created it; he knew it,” says Fellner. “We were keen for him to have that opportunity.”
Most critical in casting the players was to start with the film’s central character, aspiring politico Will Hayes. With his work as FBI Special Agent Richard Messner in Working Title’s 2007 action-thriller Smokin’ Aces, actor Ryan Reynolds had duly impressed the company filmmakers. They suggested Brooks consider him for Definitely, Maybe’s central character. “Ryan can do comedy; he can do drama,” relates Fellner. “We had just done Smokin’ Aces, and the studio and I thought that he’s definitely a major star.”
When Brooks first met Reynolds, the director was struck by the actor’s take on Will Hayes. “One of the first things he said to me is, `It’s like a Jimmy Stewart part,’” Brooks recalls. “And that’s always how I had imagined it. What I sensed when I met him was an immediate appeal and an everyman quality that is hard to find.”
Furthermore, Reynolds’ versatility was key to his landing the role of Will. “I think Ryan has that ability to be absolutely convincing in the world that he creates around him, and yet still have impeccable comic timing,” lauds Brooks.
In telling the story of his rather complicated romantic life to his daughter, Will changes the names of the three most influential loves of his life. This way, his precocious daughter doesn’t know which woman in the story he ends up marrying-and then divorcing-until he’s done with her bedtime story.
For the actor, Definitely, Maybe was a departure from other comedic roles, such as Waiting and Just Friends, in which he had performed. “I always say it’s a romantic whodunit,” Reynolds provides. “With most romantic comedies, you can see where they’re going by page two. This is one that I had no idea what was going to happen until the last page.”
Reynolds saw Will as a man shaped by multiple influences: primarily by his daughter and the three great loves of his life, but also by New York City. After his Democratic candidate wins the presidency, Will starts a political consulting firm with his best friend, Russell (Derek Luke).
Another crucial influence upon Will, according to Reynolds, is our 42nd president, his personal hero. “He was our JFK-there is a sense that he was my president, that he was going to do something,” Reynolds relates.
Continue Reading and View the Theatrical Trailer
Definitely, Maybe (2008)
Directed by: Adam Brooks
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Isla Fisher, Derek Luke, Sakina Jaffrey, Dana Eskelson, Victoria Goldsmith, Paulina Gerzon, Ashtyn Greenstein
Senaryo Adam Brooks
Screenplay by: Adam Brooks
Production Design by: Stephanie Carroll
Cinematography by: Florian Ballhaus
Film Editing by: Peter Teschner
Costume Design by: Gary Jones
Set Decoration by: Ellen Christiansen
Art Direction by: Peter Rogness
Music by: Clint Mansell
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, including some frank dialogue language and smoking.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: February 14, 2008
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