"We Own the Night"? More like, "We Rent the Afternoon."
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Who's Your Mommy?
(Images courtesy of Emerz) Emerz came from a woman, a woman he has met several times, a woman who pays for his cable. I came from a woman myself, one I have grown to be very fond of over the years despite her gradual hearing loss and selective memory. In "Definitely, Maybe," Abigail Breslin does not know who her mother is, at least in terms of her father's sexual history. The plot is as difficult to follow as it is to explain. Written and directed by Adam Brooks, the movie is a convoluted take on an average story, a young man's coming-of-age in an urban setting. Despite the confusion and the lame attempt at setting the majority of the plot in flashbacks to the eerily authentic early 90s, Emerz did not find it "fresh."
The film opens with Reynolds opening an important-looking document. Uh-oh, it is his divorce papers. But from who? and how could this possibly happen? But it is our lucky day, because on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Will picks his daughter up from school and they have fun little talks. This is how families work now, Emerz told me. He never forgot the day that he found out that his mother had been married before. I once met an ex-boyfriend of my mother who drove a silver Jaguar convertible and his daughter was in the passenger seat and even though he introduced us and even though he had to lean across her to shake my hand, she never looked up or acknowledged me in any way. I then stalked her online for several months.
On this particular Tuesday, Will picks up his daughter, Mya, only to find out that she learned about sex through a state-sponsored educational program. Hilarity ensues as Breslin says words like "penis" often and loudly. It is now on Will's shoulders to explain the social aspect of sex to his daughter, a process he refers to as "rehearsing." So he tells the precocious, prepubescent Mya about the three loves of his life and how he had sex with all of them and yet somehow only one of them is her Mom.
Reynolds is an attractive man. Emerz readily admits it, and I concur. He has tried really hard to stop doing the knee-jerk condescending thing that he falls back on often, and for that I thank and applaud him. He is vulnerable in this film, accessible, believable, even. If I made this movie and knew he was to be my leading man, I would give him something more to work with, a la the athletic and pleasantly disturbing sex montage in "Good Luck Chuck." But instead he gets three women of substance: Elizabeth Banks as his college gal, Rachel Weisz as the sensual and sophisticated big city writer, and Isla Fischer as the free spirit who moves in and out of his life. All three women break his heart, sometimes more than once. Will also has a boner for Bill Clinton, who he works for believes in, but who ultimately fails him. A love story for the new millennium, set at the end of the last millennium, against a back drop of political intrigue and alternative music. What could possibly go wrong?
Emerz says he was let down by the film because the women were all flaky, but resilient when the story required them to be. For instance, Banks sleeps with Will's college roommate while they are briefly separated, but when we see her later in the film she is a good person who we are meant to like and respect. Everyone makes mistakes, Emerz knows that, but don't ask him to forget and forgive in like half an hour.
This leads him to the curvy Weisz, who had a lesbian hook-up with Banks at summer camp a long time ago and asked Will to deliver an old diary for her. Whatever. She loves him and Will loves her and we love them together and she betrays him and then they fail. Life goes on, I told Emerz.
Then Will loses his job and hits the sauce and lets himself go a little bit and watches the Lewinsky thing unravel on television while eating Chinese. He is all set to give it a go with Fischer but gets too drunk and instead insults her. Emerz knows all about that.
There is a happy ending of sorts, though Emerz didn't believe it. And Will became less likeable as the film dragged on. Emerz found it hard not to blame the three women for that, somehow.
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