The Reel Review
When a young couple contemplating marriage finally invite their parents to meet each other for dinner, a big secret is exposed: the four parents have been involved in two secret relationships with one another without realizing their adult children were dating – one pair’s relationship having just ended and another just starting. Diane Keaton, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and William H. Macy star in this farcical romantic comedy.
The convoluted premise at least had the potential to be really hilarious. But for a movie about infidelity, Maybe I Do is a shockingly sexless, sexist and bland film, with stilted, cringeworthy dialogue that sounds like it was written in the 1950s. The female characters are caricatures – a domineering, loathsome nag (Sarandon), a prudish evangelical Christian (Keaton) and a one-dimensional potential bride (Emma Roberts) whose entire self-worth comes from being with a relationship-phobic boyfriend who is hesitant to put a ring on it. The story from writer/director Michael Jacobs (Boy Meets World) is based on his failed 1978 Broadway play, ‘Cheaters.’
Not surprisingly, the film has the look of an awkwardly blocked stage play, with some strange choices in camera shots – as though Jacobs was so excited to get such big-name stars for his film that he needed to include ALL of them in EVERY scene. Collectively, the cast is way better than this feeble film. Oddly, its intended message, about the value of marriage and finding the right person, comes across more as an unintended cautionary tale about investing your entire self-worth through romantic relationships.
REEL FACTS
• Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey also co-starred in the 2020 rom-com Holidate.
• Diane Keaton and Richard Gere co-starred in the 1977 crime thriller, Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Keaton would win a Best Actress Oscar for 1977’s Annie Hall.
• Maybe I Do, with an estimated budget of $7.5 million, was a box office flop, grossing only $4 million worldwide.
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