I know what you guys are thinking, Phocks is reviewing a romantic comedy? What the hell? Well yes, I am, and I am glad that I went to see this movie because it was put together very well.
Ryan Reynolds has completely turned his career around as an actor. When he burst on to the scene with his characters in movies like Van Wilder, and Waiting, it gave me the feeling that he was going to be this guy who does all these goofy slapstick teenage comedies and then fizzle out after a few years. Now though, especially with this role, I think he is capable of doing so much more as his performance here really carried the movie very well.
Reynolds plays Will Hayes, a soon to be divorced father of his only child Maya (Abigail Breslin.) Will picks Maya up from school one day only to find out that in school that day they learned about sex education. Don’t worry, they address that its pretty creepy for 10 year olds to be learning about sex-ed. This line of education makes Maya question Will on how he meets her mother, after nagging Will to death about it, Will gives in and tells the stories of him meeting 3 different women when he was younger and having Maya guess which one is her mom.
The story flashes back to the early 1992 where Will is shown leaving his home in Wisconsin to move to New York to work on the Bill Clinton campaign. His current girlfriend at the time Emily (Elizabeth Banks) does not want to come to New York with him, however Will convinces her to engage in a long distance relationship. Before Will leaves, Emily gives a package for Will to take to one of her longtime friends in New York a girl by the name of Summer Hartley (Rachel Weisz). Summer is a writer for a local magazine and Will takes a liking to her almost instantly. Also when he meets Summer there is a small appearance by Kevin Kline in the movie and I thought he was great because Kline can really pull off the kind of character he was portraying.
Will finds life on the Clinton campaign trail to not be exactly what he was hoping for and has some funny situations with his boss Gareth being played by Adam Ferrara. Also working in the headquarters is April (Isla Fisher), who Will also takes a liking to almost instantly.
So Will tells the story to Maya about the trials and errors of his ways with the 3 ladies until eventually Maya figures out which of the three ladies is her mother. Its also got a few other surprises in the movie that I do not want to get into here because it would probably spoil a lot of the movie, but I am telling you that this is worth seeing. Very well done in my opinion.
8/10
Written by: Ami on Sun, Feb 17, 2008