Always Be My Maybe

The new Netflix romantic comedy Always Be My Maybe is not original. In fact, it’s loaded with clichés. Watching it, you get the sense that stars Ali Wong and Randall Park must be friends in real life who were having lunch together one day when one of them said, “We should work together. What should we do? I know! A romantic comedy! Yeah, let’s write one. I can play the Type-A successful woman who doesn’t have time for a relationship and you can play the regular-guy-schlub who helps me relax and I help you get your life together! Then we can put in a Notting Hill moment and then a When Harry Met Sally Moment, oh, and hey, let’s not forget the falling-in-love sequence set to music!” The movie hits just about every contemporary romcom cliché you can think of, including the desperate last minute run to confess your love in front of a bunch of strangers at a public event.

Even though there is nothing new under the sun where this film is concerned, it is not without its merits. Wong and Park play lifelong friends who grew up in San Francisco together. After a brief physical encounter that goes awry as young adults, they go their separate ways and don’t see each other for over a decade. Wong’s character, Sasha, becomes a world-famous chef, opening high-end restaurants across the globe and appearing on the cover of Food and Wine Magazine. Park’s character, Marcus, has stayed in San Francisco where he works for his dad’s heating and cooling company and plays in the same band he’s been in since high school. Sasha comes back to the Bay Area to open a new restaurant and the two reconnect. As I said, there’s not much new in the story.

Wong and Park are both funny and can deliver a throwaway punchline with sniper-like efficiency, but as romantic leads, neither are particularly convincing. Again, they seem like pals workshopping a screenplay at a summer seminar more than believable characters with an actual relationship.

Always Be My Maybe has exactly three really good things going for it.

Number one, the soundtrack is fantastic. It features a host of West Coast rappers and R and B artists from the 90s through today, and it’s expertly curated to add energy and motion to the film when the story itself is only so-so.

Number two, as is often the case in romantic comedies, the supporting cast is hilarious. There must be something freeing about playing the wacky best friend or the wise parent. Michelle Buteau as Veronica, Sasha’s best friend and personal assistant, is hilarious and is probably the film’s MVP for funny line delivery. James Saito as Marcus’s dad, Harry, is wry, sad, funny, and irreverent. He brings a few real moments of genuine emotion and humanity to a relatively small role.    

Number three, there is an extended celebrity cameo in the film where a real-life famous action star plays himself as Sasha’s new boyfriend. They go out to dinner with Marcus and his star-struck, hippie-dippy girlfriend and then back to his lavish hotel suite for a high octane game of Truth or Dare. For the fourteen or so minutes he is on the screen, this actor takes Always Be My Maybe from being a middling romcom and turns it into a cringey, unpredictable fever dream. I watched most of this sequence with my mouth open, utterly surprised that this guy actually showed up for this and then fully invested in playing himself as a wildly pretentious, borderline nutjob. It was pure delight, and I will go back and watch those fourteen minutes of the film again.

Beyond that, Always Be My Maybe is nothing special. Like many Netflix projects, it needs a stronger editorial voice through every part of the process, trimming this, adding that, and encouraging more originality. Park and Wong will probably get more jobs based on this film, but hopefully, their new projects are actually new.