First Hit: Although Ryan Reynolds wasn’t really convincing, I found the story line and interplay between Ryan and Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, and Rachel Weisz to be engaging and thoughtful.
The film begins with Ryan (as Will Hayes) picking up his daughter Maya (played by Abigail) from school because it is his turn to have her stay with him. It is apparent that he thinks the world of her and having her on these particular days brings great joy to his life.
Will and his soon-to-be ex-wife are on the verge of signing the final divorce decree which was delivered to him at work just prior to his leaving to pick up his daughter from school. That evening with her curiosity running high, Maya begs him to tell her how she met her mom.
Reluctantly, he tells the story but with a twist, he tells her he is going to change the names of the 3 main women that were in his life and she is going to have to guess who her mom is. This makes the story fun and engaging, because as the story unfolds we live the story through the film.
On occasion we come back to him telling her this story while lying on her bed. As the story unfolds from his college days he weaves his lift into how he met each of these woman and what he liked about each one of them. What I liked about the way this narrative presented itself is that it was thoughtful from a thoughtful man’s point of view.
As the story unfolded I found myself guessing which woman it was and why. I liked each of the women and their relationship with Will and also saw why each failed. But the emphasis was the wonderfulness of each of the women and maybe this is just a guy thing, but it is a nice way to remember the women we love. We do find out who Maya’s mother is and then Maya encourages Will to reconnect with one of the other women because she thinks this will make him happy.
Overall: Although I didn’t think much of Ryan’s acting, I thought the way the film was written, directed and the way it fleshed out the relationships more than made up for this and was truly enjoyable.