Always Be My Maybe (2019, PG-13)

This is a movie I’ve been waiting for for a while.  I’ve loved Randall Park on Fresh Off the Boat for years, and to see him star in a rom-com he wrote with co-star/co-writer Ali Wong just sounded awesome.  The film is finally here, and I found it to be simply a delight.

Sasha and Marcus are childhood best friends who haven’t spoken since a falling-out 15 years ago.  When Sasha, now a renowned chef, returns home to San Francisco to open a new restaurant, she reconnects with Marcus, who still lives/works with his dad and has been quietly existing as the frontman of a band that’s not as successful as it could be.  Seeing each other again stirs up both old wounds and old affections, and the two try to reconcile their youthful friendship with the grownups they’ve become.

This is a neat story.  In my opinion, it does what the best rom-coms do:  it plants the seeds for why these two could be a great couple while simultaneously showing the shortcomings on both sides that are keeping them apart.  Marcus and Sasha have something of an odd-couple situation going on, since he seems rudderless but mostly content while she’s incredibly-driven but kind of miserable, but the history between them keeps it from being the sort of “they’re at each other’s throats right up until the moment they start to kiss” combative chemistry that you often see with pairings like that.  There’s an easy shorthand between them and they quickly fall into old routines even as they struggle to navigate aspects of their present-day dynamic.  Both characters are flawed but likable, and you root for them to get their respective crap together.

The movie is also Asian-American AF, which I really enjoy.  It’s sprinkled with little references everywhere, some of which are overt (like Marcus and Sasha’s discussion about “elevated Asian food” and Sasha being impressed at the “gangsta” move of every single car in Chinatown having a handicapped placard) while others are more subtle (like Sasha cutting vegetables with scissors and Marcus repping the blog Angry Asian Man with two different T-shirts.)  These moments make the world of the movie feel lived-in and real, just pan-Asian Americans living their lives and telling their stories.

Terrific cast from top to bottom.  Obviously, Ali Wong and Randall Park are both great as Sasha and Marcus.  They have great comedic chemistry together, and while their characters flirt with archetypes (she’s anal retentive and ambitious, he’s a bit of a slacker whose life hasn’t gone anywhere,) Wong and Park flesh them out and make them feel more genuine than those stock descriptions.  The film also features Daniel Dae Kim, a very funny appearance from Keanu Reeves, Karan Soni (who I first took notice of in Deadpool,) a wonderfully-warm performance from James Saito, and a few fun scenes with Casey Wilson.  Everyone does great work, and it’s fun to see a movie with nearly all Asian-American faces.

Warnings

Language, sexual content, drinking/drug usage, brief violence, and thematic elements.