Movie Review: Always Be My Maybe

Always Be My Maybe *** / *****

Directed by: Nahnatchka Khan.

Written by: Michael Golamco and Randall Park and Ali Wong.

Starring: Ali Wong (Sasha Tran), Randall Park (Marcus Kim), James Saito (Harry), Michelle Buteau (Veronica), Vivian Bang (Jenny), Keanu Reeves (Keanu Reeves), Susan Park (Judy), Daniel Dae Kim (Brandon Choi), Karan Soni (Tony), Charlyne Yi (Ginger), Lyrics Born (Quasar), Casey Wilson (Chloe), Miya Cech (12-Year-Old Sasha), Emerson Min (12-Year-Old Marcus), Ashley Liao (14 / 16-Year-Old Sasha), Jackson Geach (14 / 16-Year-Old Marcus), Anaiyah Bernier (14 / 16-Year-Old Veronica).

 

For the last couple of years, I’ve thought it was kind of weird that no one had thought of doing what Jason Blum and his company has done for horror, but with romantic comedies. The Blum horror films are all over the map – some are legitimately great, like Get Out, some are great trash, like last week’s Ma, and some are films that are either horrible, or else you never even really hear about them. He can keep churning them out though because they cost almost nothing to make, and all he needs is one or two to hit a year, and he’s in the black. But it seems like someone has decided to do that – and that someone is Netflix. Netflix has been churning out romantic comedies for the past few years – and they have made from some of their more popular original films. And they’ve been smart about it too – letting debut filmmakers, with diverse casts make at least some of these films. Not being a huge romantic comedy fan, most of these films have flown under my radar – but since I find both Ali Wong and Randall Park to be utterly charming – and like director Nahnatchka Khan’s Fresh Off the Boat (although, like all network shows, its hard to keep up) – I figured I should check out Always Be My Maybe.

 

Always Be My Maybe isn’t a great film – it isn’t a great romantic comedy. But it is a fun one, and will basically scratch that itch for those romantic comedy lovers that Hollywood has essentially ignored for the last decade. And I appreciated how the film was grounded in the reality of its characters – Asian Americans living in San Francisco, and even the differences between them (Park’s character is Korean America, Wong’s is Vietnamese American). It’s smart about that – and just plain fun.

 

The film opens with a little prologue of Marcus and Sasha who grew up next door to each other. Marcus’ parents are loving and supportive, and always around – and Sasha is basically a latchkey kid, left by herself more often than not. She spends more time with Marcus and his family than anyone else – they are best friends, and for one night as teenagers, more than that. But then Marcus says something stupid and hurt, and they lose touch. Flash forward (what 10 years? 15 years? Not sure) – and now Sasha is a famous chef living in L.A., engaged to a workaholic asshole (Daniel Dae Kim) – who needs to come to San Francisco to open a new restaurant. Of course, she reconnects with Marcus – who still lives with his father, working at his business, and still in the same band as in high school. He is a portrait of arrested development, whereas she is driven and ambitious. You know where this is going.

 

And it gets there, complete with a few detours along the way, all of which go precisely how you expect them to go. But it all works. It works because Wong – mainly a standup – is in fine form as the sharp tongued Sasha (she’s a little less effective at the romantic parts of the romantic comedy), and Park is an absolute delight as Marcus. And because the supporting cast is well cast – from James Saito as Marcus’ supportive father and Michelle Buteau as Sasha’s supportive friend, but especially the two other people who the couple need to dispose of to be together. Vivian Bang is a delight as the dreadlocked hippie chick Marcus is currently dating. And then there is Keanu Reeves (who is, of course, Asian-American – or perhaps Asian-American-Canadian) who is playing himself – the most extreme version of the stereotype who think of him as, and he is downright hilarious, playing himself as a self-involved asshole, masking that behind he is new age bullshit.

 

No one is going to accuse Always Be My Maybe of being original. It isn’t. But it is delightful and funny, with the brilliant Keanu Reeves sequence half way through. It is the perfect Netflix movie – the kind of thing you turn on when you have a lot of laundry to fold, so you can kind of half pay attention and be delighted. Which, for me anyway, is about as good as modern romantic comedies can be.