"DEFINITELY, MAYBE"(2008).....A-

This is a smartly written romantic comedy by Adam Brooks, who also directed the movie. It is a bit too long at nearly two hours and the pacing does occasionally drag, but the moments where I noticed this were few and fleeting. Those minor caveats aside, the great strength of this film is in its exceptional casting with all of the roles conceived and then played to perfection.

This film starts out on a rather common and ordinary footing. Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) appears to be a typical Manhattan yuppie who occupies a spacious office with walls of glass in the high rise offices of an advertising agency. He does not look particularly happy, and this note of sadness is emphasized when he is served the papers finalizing his divorce.

Will is a formerly idealistic young man who had graduated with honors from the famously liberal University of Madison and had started out working for the Clinton campaign in 1992. Fifteen years later he is now unhappily settling down to the prospect that he may amount to little more than just another ad exec who hawks kiddy cereals. Dreams of a life in politics have run aground on the rocks of reality with every politician who he had idolized turning out to have feet of clay.

The day soon brightens when Will takes off early, as he does on every Wednesday and Friday afternoon, to spend time with his beloved preteen daughter. We learn that his time with her is one of the great joys in his life. It is at this point where this movie takes an unusual turn that proves to be highly original and very entertaining.

Will's daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin, "Little Miss Sunshine"), is wise beyond her years. (Aren't they all in the world of cinema?) Maya tells him that he doesn't know how unhappy he is, so instead of an ordinary bedtime story, Maya wants to know what happened to her dad's marriage. She decides to play the amateur psychologist in the hope that her dad might cure the mistakes that he is making in the present by having a greater understanding of his past.

Initially reluctant to discuss the personal details of his life, Will rises to her challenge. He then challenges his precocious daughter to guess which one of the three great loves of his life turned out to be her mother. He will describe each relationship in detail, but with fictitious names provided for the three women.

Of course, this examination of her dad's past loves is to be a sad one, for the woman who had won has now lost and so has the man who had chosen her to be his life's partner. Maya wants him to provide a forensic romantic autopsy, as it were, on each relationship in order to figure out why they had each ended the way that they did.

The casting for the movie is pitch-perfect with Ryan Reynolds as Will Hayes, the idealistic young political operative. Better yet, the three women in his life are all different, but each is wildly captivating in her own right. The case is not biased for or against any of the three and we, as well as Maya, can easily visualize any of the girls ending up being her mother. Being the romantic that I am, I leapt into the fray and selected my choice of the best woman for Will, but I am sorry to say that I was wrong.

"Emily" (Elizabeth Banks) is the beautiful "white bread" blond college coed who remains behind in Madison while Will achieves the plum assignment of going off to work on the Clinton campaign in New York City. She worries that he will change in the big city far from his midwestern roots. Emily serves as the role model for the quintessential first love and college sweetheart.

Will meets the second great love of his life when he carries out Emily's request to convey her personal diary to "Summer Hartley" (Rachel Weisz), her former college roommate. Will was only briefly acquainted with Summer at Madison, but this later meeting provides the spark that would have ignited into a blaze except for the fact that Summer is currently involved with Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline), a famous author and gray-haired, egotistical drunk who Will had initially assumed was her father.

They later do have an affair after Hampton had dumped Summer for an even younger women, a college coed at that, and she has become a journalist with a New York magazine. Weisz exudes intelligence and beauty in her role, and it is hard for anyone not to wish for these two to get together. Summer is cast as the girl who could have been the one, but maybe the stars will never be in alignment for her and Will.

Will's third great love is "April" (Isla Fisher), a sparkling personality who lacks ambition and loves to travel. She is the lowly copy girl in the Clinton election headquarters. April is a "good time girl" and someone who would never be boring, neither quality of which would rarely recommend her for a long term commitment. In any event, Will is too driven and April is too much of a free spirit. Somewhat surprisingly, these two do become great friends, but could there be more?

Tying everything together is Will's delightful daughter Maya, an eleven year old bundle of energy who, like Ellen Page in "Juno," is precociously wise far beyond her years. Adding additional character to the film is Derek Luke in the role of Will's best friend and one-time business partner. 112 minutes and rated PG-13 for sexual content including some frank dialogue, language, and smoking.