Breaking Down Definitely, Maybe

As mentioned in my first Feature Writing Journal, I decided to take a look at Definitely, Maybe (2008), written and directed by Adam Brooks.

I’m doing a bit of a different breakdown here than in the past TV episode breakdowns I have done. This is in part because a movie is much longer, so even in point form writing every scene can get to be a bit much. But it’s also because I am still deciding how I want to do these breakdowns that I’m posting.

A key difference in this breakdown is that I’m not breaking it down by acts. The element I am separating the movie into is sequences; portions of the story that build to some kind of change. I happen to have broken this into eleven sequences, but this isn’t to mean that all movies would have this many, or even that some of these can’t be either combined or split further. Much like many kinds of breakdowns, there is a degree to which the way I have done it is through subjective choices.

For the sake of having some of the more usual beats called out, I’ll make a few notes within it as where they can be said to take place in here. You’ll see in these notes that I am very non-committal about some of them, and that is again because it could be very subjective where they are.

The Structure:

Will’s Present

Will is getting divorced, but he has a daughter, Mia, who means the world to him.  Mia has just learned about sex at school, and now she’s got questions; specifically, how her parents got together. She tries guessing all the cliché romcom love stories, but Will says it was complicated. He gives in. He’ll tell the story, but he’s changing all the names.

(The “inciting incident” can arguably be Mia learning about sex, Will agreeing to tell the story, or Will’s move to New York [where his story begins])

Will Moves to New York

It’s 1992, and Will is with his college sweetheart, Emily. He wants to be president someday, and so, when a chance to work on Bill Clinton’s campaign in New York comes up, he has to take it. He moves away for the two-month job, forcing him and Emily to try long distance. Emily gives him a package to take to her friend in New York. When he gets there, it’s nothing like what he hoped. His job is so low in the hierarchy, he feels pointless. Even smokes cost way more in New York! Mia doesn’t like hearing her dad smoked.

Will’s Women

Will meets April, a woman working with him who runs the copy machine. She’s pretty much his opposite: she’s there for the money and doesn’t care about politics. He goes out for drinks with people from the office which leads him to drunk calling Emily, who seems convinced he is never coming back. Will lays in bed, looking over the package for Emily’s friend, Summer, which he still hasn’t delivered. His coworker/roommate, Russ, comes into the room and talks him into opening the package. It’s Summer’s old diary and has entries about her and Emily hooking up. Will finally goes to give the package to Summer and meets an older guy, Hampton, at her apartment and they end up day drinking. Summer comes home, gets a laugh out of the diary, and tells Will to keep it. When Will goes to leave, Summer kisses him. He tells Russ about it but says he won’t be calling Summer. Mia asks what a threesome is.

(the end of this sequence could be seen as the end of the first act)

Will and April

Will has moved up a little at the campaign headquarters but it’s not enough. He gets his chance moments later. Will has to fill some seats at an event to support Clinton. He’s not doing a great job, until he stops sounding like he’s reading talking point and starts speaking like himself (which begins when he looks at April). It works, first he sells a couple seats, but then another call has him selling an entire table. He runs into April when they both go to buy some smokes and end up in a bet about whose brand is the better deal. She wins. It’s also her birthday, so, rather than take money she wants him to come to a party with her since her boyfriend left town. Will is super out of place at the party. They talk about his relationship with Emily, and he shows April the ring he plans to propose with. April gets him to practice proposing on her. They end up back at her place, where we learn about her hunt for her old copy of Jane Eyre that her dad wrote a note in, which has led her to looking in secondhand stores all the time. After talking about how great it is that there is nothing between them, they kiss, and Will leaves.

Will and Emily

Will walks to his hotel as the sun comes up. He sees Emily going to the elevator and runs up the stairs to beat her to his room. He thinks he’s faster, but she’s already inside. It’s all a little awkward between the two of them, Emily even says his tongue tastes different. They go for a walk through the park, where Will tells the story of how his father proposed. His father ran into his ex, and almost ran away with her, until he saw Will’s mom and knew he didn’t need to be afraid. Will starts to propose, but Emily makes him stop, revealing that she cheated on him. Will talks about how they had a plan, but Emily says it was always his plan, not theirs. She believes that letting him go is the best thing for both of them. Mia is in shock by all this. Bill Clinton wins, which leads to everyone at the office celebrating, aside from Will. He and April apologize for the other night. Will and Russ move out of their hotel room, where Will leaves his framed picture of Emily. Mia crosses out Emily on her list of possible mothers.

(The end of this sequence is the midpoint)

Will and Summer Beginnings

Two years have passed. Will and Russ have started their own consulting firm. April and Will have become pen pals as she travels the world. The internet is a thing now, and everyone has cellphones. Will’s consulting firm gets their first big break when they are hired on to write speeches for Arthur Robredo. Will goes to see Hampton talking about his new book and runs into Summer. Hampton talks them into working together by having Summer write an article about Robredo. Mia admits that she’s starting to like Summer. The article comes out, and Will’s office is thrilled. Will goes out for dinner with Summer, and they both make it very clear they want to hook up. They go for a walk after dinner, which leads to Summer singing “I’ve Got a Crush on You” over a montage of them falling for each other and being very physical.

Will and Summer Endings

Will wakes up to find Summer starring at him. They are getting serious. She gets a call from the ER; Hampton is in the hospital. Hampton isn’t thrilled Summer brought Will with her, and then calls her out for her article on Robredo going too easy on him. Will and Russ are getting ready for an event for Robredo, but everything starts to go wrong. Will takes charge and gets everything back on track, even gets to tell his old boss to make copies. April shocks Will by being back in town. They walk to a jewelry store while she tells a story about a guy who she almost hooked up with but decided against it, which made her realize how much she cared about Will. Will doesn’t quite get what she is saying and the jewelry store is revealed to be for getting an engagement ring for Summer. April isn’t happy she didn’t know how serious things were and runs off. Mia feels bad for April. Will gets back to the event, everything is fixed, and Summer is there. She shows him her new article, and Will makes her choose between the article and him, but she’s already turned it in. It’s too late. He walks away. Mia calls Summer a bitch and crosses her of the list. The article comes out. Will is single, loses his job, and loses Russ as a friend.

Will and April II

A couple years go by again. April calls Will when the Monica Lewinski news comes out. They catch up, we find out April works in a bookstore now, Will ends up searching for her book, and Will is looking for the real thing in a relationship, not a fling. April reveals she is seeing a guy named Kevin, Will doesn’t like this. Will drinks, gets upset with the tv, and ignores messages from both April and Emily. April comes by to make Will come out to his birthday party. Russ is at the party and makes up with Will. Will thinks maybe Clinton should get impeached, which is completely different from how much he believed in Clinton in the beginning. When April brings out the cake, Will is gone. She finds him sitting on her front steps. Will confesses his love for her, but she tells him he’s a mess right now. He gets defensive and insults how she’s living her life. She slaps him. Mia is agreeing now that the story is complicated. Will stumbles upon April’s copy of Jane Eyre and buys it. When he goes to give it to her, he meets Kevin, who is now living with April. Will leaves, taking the book with him.

Mia’s Heard Too Much

Will sits outside a café where a waitress asks if he knows what he wants yet, but he doesn’t. Summer runs into him, and she’s pregnant. She isn’t with the dad anymore, and says that she’s never really needed a guy, Will’s probably the closest she’s come. She invites him to a party. Mia hates this. She’s worried she won’t like whoever in the story turns out to be her mother. She’s even more worried that it might turn out that she is Summer’s, and therefore Will isn’t really her dad. Will offers to stop telling the story, but Mia says no. Will goes to make them both tea, by the time he comes back, she is asleep.

(This sequence can be seen as the “dark night of the soul”, and ends the second act)

Will Reveals the Mother

Mia goes over her notes and becomes convinced she knows which of the women are her mother. Will and her walk through the park as he continues the story. Will goes to Summer’s party. After Will makes a point of them not trying again, Summer says she should introduce him to an old flame of hers. She does, and it’s Emily. They walk through the park and talk about when they used to be together. Mia recognizes something Emily does as something her mother always does. It’s true, Emily (whose real name is Sarah) is her mother. Will agrees to go to the Zoo with the two of them, where Mia talks about how Penguins mate for life. She says that they get lost during migration sometimes, but they always find each other. Will and Sarah talk, she almost touches him, but stops herself. Mia thanks Will for the story, and Will says that her being born is the happy ending. Will sees Clinton jogging in the park but is barely acknowledged.

(This sequence is essentially the climax)

Will and April III

Will signs the divorce papers and finds April’s Jane Eyre in a box. He goes to her work to see her and they both say they are single. He gives her the book. She asks about it and becomes upset when she discovers he has had it for years. Mia questions why April was the only person whose name Will didn’t change in the story. Mia tells Will he’s not happy. The two of them leave to go to April’s. They get in a cab and Mia talks about how most people who jump off the Brooklyn Bridge do it because of broken hearts. They arrive outside April’s and it doesn’t look like she will let them in. They agree to wait 30 seconds, all the while April is listening to them through the speaker. 30 seconds are up, they go to leave. April finally comes out. She ends up inviting them both in, and then kissing Will.

(This sequence is kind of an extended denouement. Though, it could also be argued that Will giving April the book is the climax)

The Theme:

Definitely, Maybe is a romantic comedy about how real romance is more complicated than a romantic comedy. It’s stated by Will when he’s first asked by Mia to tell the story of his relationship with her mom. He blows her off saying that it’s complicated. Even from the first scene of the movie we start to see this idea at play as Will gets a package delivered only to have it revealed to be divorce papers.

The structure itself helps build out its theme. The way it uses it’s framing device of Will telling Mia the story means that no matter how nice things look, we know they end in divorce. It’s the story of a romance that we know ends badly even before we know how it begins. On top of this, the way Will’s story covers years, having romances begin and end and pop back up because of random encounters, takes away from the usual simplicity of the romance in these kinds of movies.

Paralleling Will’s story is that of Bill Clinton’s presidency. When Will’s story begins, he talks of how great Clinton is, especially for what he is doing for women. As the movie progresses, Clinton’s affairs come out, and Will’s biggest fall from relationships coincides with the Monica Lewinski situation for Clinton. Will’s romantic life is shown to us next to a real-life example of one with very public ups and downs. There is a deleted scene that appears to take place near the end of the film, it’s present day and Bill Clinton is being talked about on the news as possibly being First Gentleman to Hillary, which, when taken into account, makes the Clinton story run parallel through the entirety of the movie.

Then there are the characters themselves. Will is a charismatic guy who spends much of his life putting work ahead of relationships. He’s a pretty straight forward romcom protagonist. Mia acts as an expert on the genre, calling out the tropes and clichés in a lot of her lines. Even in the end, she calls out how April should have run down to get them, and it happens, just slightly late.

When we look at the love interests, they act as the protagonists of three different kinds of romances. We have Emily, the college sweetheart. We have April, the opposites-attract kind of story. And then there is Summer, highly physical, sex-based relationship. Even better in romcom terms, both April and Summer have boyfriends when Will first meets them (and he is still with Emily), giving them that star crossed kind of situation that is so common in these movies.

The movie plays out like three separate romcoms taking place over years, one with each of the women, off and on and overlapping with one another. It’s through this combination of stories that it can simultaneously tell a romantic comedy sort of plot while demonstrating its theme of how much more complicated romance is than any one of them.