Pun Salad

If you get fired from Hallmark, you can always go into writing movies like Definitely, Maybe. Geez, I'm even irritated by the cutesy title.

It stars Ryan Reynolds, on the verge of divorce, who is begged by his daughter (Abigail Breslin) to tell her his romantic history. As he relates the yarn, it's illustrated for us cinematically. It's told in a manner that neither Abigail nor we know which of the women in his past life (Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz) will turn out to have been Abigail's mother. We're supposed to care.

The major problem is the dialog, and that's a real problem in a movie where just about nothing happens except people talking to each other. I don't demand, or even expect, complete verisimilitude on that score, but practically every line here screams: "No person would actually ever say this."

Which wouldn't be so bad, if the characters ever actually said something genuinely funny (like in When Harry Met Sally), interesting, insightful, quirky, or unpredictable. They never do. (On that last score: the dialog is so predictable, I actually called out an upcoming line in a couple cases. Mrs. Salad did not appreciate this.)

If I were a real movie reviewer, I'd end with: "So, to Definitely, Maybe, you should say 'Definitely, No'."