“Dad, I can’t believe you drank… and smoked… and was such a slut… But I still love you.”

Formulaic and contrived, yet heart-warming and mould breaking, it is especially hard not to like “Definitely, Maybe,” a romantic comedy that actually manages to redeem the pathetic excuse of genre in my mind. Romantic comedies are usually weak rehashes of themes and plot devices used so many times before that it is painful just thinking about them. But this film by Adam Brooks (“Wimbledon,” “Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason”) has enough emotional resonance and intelligence, stemming from a maturity completely unnatural for the genre, that wraps up its manoeuvring through waters of uneven predictability and a set-up filled with amusing twists and turns, that keep the viewer on their toes, neatly and satisfactorily at the end.

Beginning near the end of a series of many stories, all involving Will (Ryan Reynolds), if the film’s premise does not grab you, the rest of the film will be tedious for you. Will is a thirty-something advertising executive living in the Big Apple, on the cusp of finalising, literally, one of his biggest acquisitions to date, the end of his marriage. To whom, we are not certain. This unknown woman is the mother of Maya (Abigail Breslin), whom Will shares custody with. Maya, having just received her first sexual-education lesson in school, is full of questions parents dread, and being particularly distressed by the likelihood of her parents’ divorcing, she begs Will to tell her the story of how he met and fell in love with her mother. Naturally reluctant at first, Will eventually caves and agrees to tell her the story, but he will change all the names of those involved and she will have to guess which one is her mother. “It’s like a love story mystery,” Maya says, and she has the upper hand, compared to the audience, in figuring out whose who in Will’s flashback tale of heartbreak and man “slutdom,” not an actual word – they’re still coming up with a male word for slut, at least she is taking notes.

Will’s story focuses on three equally gorgeous but very different women. Emily (Elizabeth Banks) was Will’s college sweetheart in Wisconsin, whom he had to leave behind when his dreams got the better of him and he moved to New York in 1992 to help with Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. Emily is the good girl, and Will promises he will honour their fidelity. While in New York, Will is asked to give Summer (Rachel Weisz) a package from Emily, who is having a curious affair with a dissipated author Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline), a man who tells Summer to give in to her every curiosity. Then there is Will’s co-worker in the campaign, Xerox-girl April (Isla Fisher), a woman wise beyond her years, independent and smart, who uses wisecracks to make it out like she is all for the fun and not the commitment. Isla Fisher’s character is by far the most developed female character, followed by Weisz’s and then Banks’, but when comparing their various character developments with the time their characters spend onscreen, it is justified.

Will’s romantic ups and downs are cleverly weaved around those of his career, as well as the public standing of Bill Clinton himself, all in yet another alluring evocation of a rom-com styled NYC . Over the course of these various relationships, Will grows emotionally but at the cost of his youthful outlook in terms of love and relationships. That is where Breslin’s character comes in, bringing that sense of juvenile, naïve, approach to love and warm and gooey conclusions that are oh-so-satisfying, even if they do not always work out in reality, it is cinema after all. Instead of always being the guy surreptitiously lurking in the midst of his relationships, professionally and romantically, Maya urges Will to write his own happy ending, or at least, manufacture his own happiness. Easier said than done.

In most romantic comedies, men are given the back seat, and that is why woman are the genre’s target audience, but the bittersweet “Definitely, Maybe” has a lead character most men can relate to, and all the romantic turmoil that some woman love. Will is a strong male character who is not stereotypical man-candy or a useless layabout but rather a young man who is still very much journeying into manhood and is given the push he needs to embrace the point in his life where he needs to be by reliving his journey to the exact point he currently is at when the film opens – with the significant help of three complex women and one little girl.

Ryan Reynolds displays a certain level of evolvement into maturity himself, but ultimately does not have the acting range to pull off an emotional exploration of a multifaceted character, even though he does a satisfactory job that could have been better. Luckily, just like the character he plays, his instability, if you will, is balanced by three terrific performances by his female cast members. Isla Fisher steals the show and the hearts, and minds, of the audience, and watching her perform evokes such a strong image of someone blooming into a fully-fledged star. If she was onscreen the entire time, just her talking with Reynolds, in the charming and witty way their characters do, for the entirety of the film’s running time, I think it would be just as good as the film already is. The scenes in between the flashbacks, where Maya usually questions something in her dad’s story, are somewhat annoying and mess up the rhythm of the rest of the film, but that is because of the heavy-handedness of the setup. Charming and detailed performances make it worthwhile though.

While it is a standalone film, one that does not really fit into the mould of a romantic comedy in the fact that it explores so much more than it needs to, it is not always consistent in maintaining the initial perkiness of the premise. Its addition of plot points that are often confusing and easy to misunderstand asks quite a lot of its audience, more than one would expect anyway. Perhaps that is its charm, and charm it does. Is the film better than most recent romantic comedies? Definitely. Is one guaranteed time well spent? Maybe. Will I remember the film come tomorrow? Let me think about it.

Fatac Rating: ***

Definitely, Maybe. Written and Directed by Adam Brooks. Cinematography by Florian Ballhaus. Music by Clint Mansell. Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Derek Luke, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz and Kevin Kline. Running Time: 110 minutes. Age Restriction: PG M. Year: 2008. Rating out of five stars.