Will Hayes (played by Ryan Reynolds) flirts with free-spirited but ambitious journalist Summer (Rachel Weisz) in the new charmer, Definitely, Maybe.

In the romantic mystery that’s at the heart of the whimsical Definitely, Maybe, an about-to-be-divorced father spins a twisty tale for his inquisitive 10-year-old daughter in which she tries to figure out which of the several women in his life story eventually turned out to be her mother.

Writer-director Adam Brooks’ film is slow to get up to speed. The whole idea at first seems clunky, especially with its long setup that revolves around the girl Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) left behind in Wisconsin, so he could pursue his dream of becoming a hot-shot political wheeler-dealer in New York. There also are awkward early moments as little Maya (Abigail Breslin, an Academy Award nominee for Little Miss Sunshine) uses explicit clinical language to describe the human sex act to her startled dad (and probably a startled audience), following what sounds like a surprisingly graphic sex education class at her school (mercifully not played out on screen).

But as Will begins weaving the tale of his idealistic younger self to his daughter, arriving in New York City to work on the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign, leaving behind his college sweetheart in Wisconsin and meeting two very different kinds of beautiful women in Manhattan, the story’s magic begins to take hold.

In his story, Will changes the names of the women so Maya must guess which of them her father finally married. Elizabeth Banks plays the blonde beauty he left behind, but who will turn up later with surprising news for the lovesick Will. Isla Fisher plays the next woman to catch Will’s eye, a free-spirited apolitical vagabond whose romantic notions have been shaped by Jane Eyre and who wants to travel the world unencumbered by romance. Rachel Weisz plays the sophisticated bohemian, the current girl-toy of her famous author professor (Kevin Kline), whose blossoming journalistic integrity will later bring Will both joy and heartache.

Each woman has her own unique charm. Brooks keeps little Maya (and the audience) up in the air as to which lovely heartbreaker will turn out to be Maya’s mother. It’s a balancing act that Brooks juggles deftly and relentlessly, keeping us guessing almost all the way through. Even after the identity of Maya’s mother is finally revealed near the end of Definitely, Maybe, there’s still more than one shoe left to drop as this Cinderella story rolls on, although you may have thought it was over.

Definitely, Maybe is a spinning merry-go-round with the emphasis on the quirky ups and downs of romance as Will falls in and out of love with the three ladies, who are usually in and out of love with someone else by the time Will decides he’s ready to get serious with each one in turn. Reynolds (The Amityville Horror) is a boyishly handsome and appealing actor who wears his heart on his sleeve as he alternately pursues or flees from each woman. When they do get close, there’s always some problem that crops up to pull them apart.

The film is also a coming-of-age story for Will, whose youthful idealism is tested and nearly shattered again and again as the politicians he has idolized turn out to be less than the paragons of virtue he had assumed they were. Definitely, Maybe seems definitely sharp in this election year. Real archival news footage punctuates the film, whether it’s Gennifer Flowers going public with her alleged affair with Bill Clinton just before the 1992 election, President Clinton declaring several years later that he had no sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky or George W. Bush coming across as tongue-tied in an interview at the time he served as his father’s 1992 campaign manager. Looking back at these jaw-dropping clips, one wonders whether Americans were that naïve about politics.

Yet even some of the women Will has placed on pedestals turn out to be less than the goddesses he had hoped them to be. Unsettling confessions and surprise twists are what Definitely, Maybe is all about. With a title that suggests all the “iffiness” of real life, one shouldn’t be surprised that Will is never on solid ground. And neither are we, which is all the fun and intrigue of Definitely, Maybe.

****Definitely, Maybe

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz.

Rated: PG-13, contains adult themes, profanity.

mjanuson@projo.com