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The movie starts out in present day, with opening scenes where Will Hayes, played by Ryan Reynolds, is walking around in happy scenes in sunny days in the big city, but we don’t quite know where to place him yet. At this point, the movie goes right into the maybe, and the definitely seems to have long ago passed by. I saw this movie at a screening at Loews on 84th street in Manhattan and it seemed like the audience got the biggest rise out of Will’s daughter in the movie, Maya. As his daughter prod’s Will for information on his past mainly focusing on this romances, the story begins to be told in retrospective and brings 3 main women from his past going back to 1992 when he first came to New York with high hopes for a bright future for himself and the country. At this point his original intention was to leave his then girlfriend Emily for 2 months and hopes to keep it together for the long haul. In bringing the audience back to 1992, the movie almost puts a 60’s spin to the early 90’s, where again the future seems bright but fairly uncertain, and another new technological age is dawning, only this time it isn’t space but the Internet and how this new advancement brings home technology to the masses. In 1992, he has high hopes and personal ambitions, even talking about running for high office to his then girlfriend Emily, a podium though that seems unreachable through the eyes of realism and seems to separate him from present possibilities on the time line he is currently on which is 1992 going forward. He starts off helping at campaign headquarters for New York and is among other things given the job of stocking the bathroom, a long way from his own ambitions of running for high political office and not exactly a running start towards those ambitions. As he narrates his past to his daughter she is the voice of wisdom in giving him an analysis he doesn’t even have for himself to this date. He has a blooming romance with Summer a writer for a big magazine even while he is finding a niche for himself as a political speechwriter. Besides Emily, the other women is April, who becomes a long time friend and confidant. The common thread to all these characters is that with time ambitions seem to recede rather than bloom. Something happens with work for Will and as time goes on even his work achievements seem to fade from significance as conflcts first stall and then seem to put his valient work efforts out to pasture for good. The woman in his life also have that hesitancy and it seems to be costly for them as well. Dormant hopes and possibilities still at times seem near, but as hopes are dashed the characters seem ready to dislodge even further. As time goes on the initial importance of goals, political ideals, seems to more serve as props than servicing the core of who these people really are. There is a dose of sadness to this movie, which is always nice, in that these vibrant characters, with all of these early hopes, seem to sink with their difficulties and uncertainties, and reduce expectations perhaps prematurely. All these years had been ahead of them, but their was a hesitancy towards trying again, things were more quickly lost than found again and maybe only a shadow could be reclaimed. Summer has a parallel boyfriend, a professor who serves as mentor in more ways than just studies, yet her involvement with him is symbolic. She may not want to test fully the other waters, the waters of the more probable, that she would have to follow through on more fully and more definitively and then risk finding out she is not equal to the task. It is like the golfer, going out and saying at best they will double bogey and they’ll aim for that and shoot shorter shots, rather than looking for a full equation in their possibilities. The more equal partner in terms of the outlining long term, is more to the far reaches, and she would rather not play the game to equal par. What was particularly interesting about this film was it arch time wise and career wise for the characters in this movie. It is very easy to lose balance, to get off par, in the high rise of new technology, those expanding possibilities for career progress that exhumes no end, and the easy ability to step away in time ridden activities that operate as hideaways. A particularly poignant moment in the film comes later, when one of his former romances says that was the closest she ever came to the big commitment. Giving her attractiveness, this was suprising but not too suprising in the context of how people do move away from the concept of long term romance and don't let the possiblility of it come close again in contemporary society where other distractions are ready willing and able to take up that space. Yet the lesson was maybe they should have given stonger consideration to the opportunities that did come close at the time and now faded It is interesting that the characters in this movie don’t look a day older, more than a decade later. . Maybe it was done on purpose, to show that the initial vibrancy was still there and could be recaptured.
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