Definitely, Maybe is a boy-meets-girl-meets-girl-meets-girl story, but don't assume there's some smokin' ménage a quatre waiting at the end of the rainbow. This sweet but not exactly starry-eyed romantic comedy keeps its couplings separate but equal, then challenges us to figure out which of its multiple dreamgirls is the real Ms. Right. And compared to the way these things usually play out, the movie keeps us guessing long enough to qualify as the Where's Waldo of rom-coms.
Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes, a vaguely dissatisfied ad man who wanders the streets of Manhattan grooving along to "Everyday People" (one of the obligatory feel-good oldies juicing up the soundtrack) and planning his days in order to spend time with his precocious young daughter.
It's a de facto law that all 10-year-old girls in romantic comedies must be precocious, but Will's daughter, Maya (played by Little Miss Precocious herself, Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin), takes the cake. Fresh from her first sex ed class, the kid just can't keep from shouting "penis" and "thrust" during the movie's first few scenes, prompting dad, probably just to shut her up, to tell her a bedtime story about how he met her mother.
The twist here — and this is Definitely, Maybe's big hook — is that Will relates a tale involving a trio of old flames, giving all of the women pseudonyms in order to prolong the suspense and keep the identity of Maya's mom (i.e., the woman he'll eventually marry) from her (and from us) until the last possible moment. The three women — conveniently color-coded as a blonde, a brunette and a redhead — are all equally adorable and receive roughly equal screen time, so it's pretty much anyone's guess whom Reynolds will wind up with.
The story unfolds in flashback, beginning in 1992 with Will leaving his hometown sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks) to work in New York, where copious weirdness and delights await — including various comely females, one of whom may just turn out to be the future Mrs. Hayes. Banks still has her lovely hooks in his heart, but Will finds his eye wandering in the direction of a quirky copy girl (Isla Fisher) with twin obsessions for Kurt Cobain and Jane Eyre. And then there's that intriguing, oh-so-sophisticated novelist with the flashing eyes (Rachel Weisz) who flirts with Will while her famous, live-in boyfriend (a grizzled and randy Kevin Kline) lounges in the next room.
Definitely, Maybe gets a bit sugary and overstays its welcome by at least 15 minutes, but it's still nice to see a romantic comedy that doesn't get completely dragged into the pitfalls of formula or fall all over itself aping the new genre standards established by Judd Apatow and the Farrelly Brothers. Comparatively speaking, despite a few "penises" spewed from the mouths of babes, this is one squeaky-clean puppy.
Meanwhile, the heart of darkness is alive and well in The Spiderwick Chronicles, a much-anticipated (at least by anyone under the age of 12) fantasy-adventure opening this week.
The special effects and action sequences are nothing to sneeze at, but what really distinguishes The Spiderwick Chronicles is flesh and blood. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice the name John Sayles (Return of the Secaucus Seven, Secret of Roan Inish) listed as one of the movie's screenwriters, and the touchy family dynamics underpinning the film are distinctly his. The movie's young heroes are propelled by boatloads of blame and resentment over a parent's impending divorce and — for all the magic, monsters and cosmic battles between good and evil — the real show here is the human psyche: the real dark stuff.
Freddie Highmore fans will get more than their money's worth watching the young actor doing double duty as twin brothers Simon (the passive, buttoned-up one) and Jared (the rumpled, feisty one, who spends much of the movie pushing the buttons of his soon-to-be-single mom). The film opens with the boys and their sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger) being uprooted to a big, creepy house in the middle of nowhere, and The Spiderwick Chronicles wastes no time commencing with things that go bump in the night, complete with rhymed warnings demanding the family's immediate departure.
The action kicks in big time when Jared discovers the movie's MacGuffin — an all-powerful book unlocking the secrets of a hidden, magical realm — prompting all manner of fantastical creatures to materialize and race about in an effort to make the book their own.
Some of these creatures are warm and fuzzy constructs, including a porcine Muppet voiced by Seth Rogen and a honey-sucking imp called Thimbletack (Martin Short) who looks like Ben Stein transformed into a 3-inch tall version of The Hulk. But outside the house lurk swarms of nastier entities in the form of sharp-tooth-and-nailed goblins, commanded by a big-cheese ogre called Mulgrath (Nick Nolte). Parents of young children should be advised that parts of The Spiderwick Chronicles may be too intense for the wee ones. Mulgrath shape-shifts into various frightening forms, but the really spooky stuff is reserved for the grand finale.
The real monster is revealed as none other than the family's absent father, leaving it up to the children to face down their fears and become the masters of their own house. Since Sayles had a hand in this fairy tale, you'll just have to find out for yourself how it all turns out.
This article appears in Feb 13-19, 2008.
