Will Hayes is having a rough day. Bad enough that his divorce papers just arrived. Worse, he has to have "the serious talk" about it with his precocious 11-year-old daughter. Worst, she has just had her first sex-education class at school and is aquiver with follow-up questions.

"Definitely, Maybe" is the kind of answer she gets, as well as the title of writer-director Adam Brooks' romantic comedy for Valentine's Day 2008 -- an engaging if not scintillating exercise, thanks to its cast and premise.

The cast is headed by Ryan Reynolds as Will and Abigail ("Little Miss Sunshine") Breslin as daughter Maya. She demands to know how it all began -- and why it all went wrong -- between her mother and father.

---

'Definitely, Maybe'

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

• Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz, Abigail Breslin
• Rating: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, including some frank dialogue, language and smoking.
• Web site: definitelymaybemovie.com/

---

The premise is that, instead of a straight answer, Will's reply takes the form of an extended bedtime story-flashback concerning the three loves of his life: hometown sweetheart Emily (Elizabeth Banks), Manhattan co-worker confidante April (Isla Fisher) and free-spirited journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz). But he changes the names.

It's a mystery Maya has to solve: Which of the three women became her mom? Which one will he end up with?

Will's romantic odyssey began when he left Madison, Wis. -- and Emily -- to work on the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign in New York. That's where the starry-eyed political idealist met April, and where he'd have his run-in with Summer.

"I had two serious girlfriends," he explains, ever so delicately, "... and then some smattering of other women."

"What's the boy word for 'slut'?" asks Maya.

"They still haven't come up with one yet," he replies.

The Reynolds-Breslin banter is intermittently cute and sweet, at best, and unavoidably forced, at worst. Their father-daughter chemistry seems genuine, but -- sandwiched between the flashbacks -- there's not enough of it to really work. It's primarily just a storytelling device that makes minimal use of Little Miss Sunshine's skills.

Of the trio of adult femmes fatales, Weisz manages the most complexity of character, while Fisher (best known for "The Wedding Crashers") is irresistibly frazzled and, perhaps, as close to Jean Arthur in the "rom com" department as anybody here is going to get -- through no fault of their own. The script rarely rises to the challenge of providing its characters with the wit and snappy patter they need.

Similarly, the intriguing hint of a subplot involving Will's disillusionment with the Clinton '90s, in general, is never seriously developed.

What we're left with is a pleasantly unusual seriocomedy of some charm and substance, which just might make the low-key, self-effacing Reynolds ("Smokin' Aces") a more viable leading man in the future. His awkward lack of confidence as a lover comes across as endearing.

Not so endearing, for my money, is Kevin Kline as a womanizing alcoholic who serves as Summer's mentor and Reynolds' over-the-top foil.

Director Brooks ("Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason") is not exactly a natural with this delicate genre and gives in to a pat crowd-pleaser ending. But even so, "Definitely, Maybe" is an entertaining Valentine to the effect that Cupid is not so stupid after all.