Always Be My Maybe. Directed by Nahnatchka Khan. Written by and starring Ali Wong and Randall Park. Rating: 7 (out of 10)
Always Be My Maybe stars Ali Wong and Randall Park in a tale as old as time: childhood friends ruin a perfectly good friendship with bad sex but get a second chance at romance as fully formed, successful adults.
Actually, Sasha (Wong) is the only full-fledged adult in this duo: Marcus (Park) is still living in his dad’s basement, smoking pot daily and afraid to leave the comfort of his small San Francisco neighbourhood. Sasha has built a new life for herself in New York City as a celebrity chef and owner of several tony eateries. She’s got the man-candy, too: she and restaurant promoter Brandon (Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim) look good in the glossies, but she’s still waiting for a ring on her finger.
She and Marcus reunite when she returns to her hometown to open a new restaurant and Marcus shows up to install the HVAC in her palatial rental home (with Vancouver standing in for San Francisco, naturally). They haven’t seen each other for 16 years, since an awkward hookup in the back of Marcus’s creaky Corolla. Sasha’s dishy boyfriend has gone AWOL in India but she starts dating again with a vengeance, and it isn’t long before she finds a more-than-adequate replacement; for his part, Marcus is reluctantly dating a well-meaning but ditzy community activist (a scene-stealing Vivian Bang). “How does an Asian woman even cultivate dreadlocks?” deadpans Sasha.
Sasha and Marcus share more than mutual loss of virginity as part of their history: Sasha’s parents were never around, and she ate solo dinners of Spam and rice until being invited to the warmth and home-cooked meals of the Kim family next door. Mrs. Kim was her surrogate mom, and the inspiration behind her desire to become a chef.
Wong and Park wrote the script and their friend Nahnatchka Khan directs. The trio built on the relationship forged by the ABC comedy Fresh Off The Boat, now in its fifth season. Khan is a creator of the comedy series in which Park plays restaurateur Louis Huang and Wong has guest-starred. The show is the first TV series in the U.S. to feature Asian-Americans since Margaret Cho’s All American Girl made a brief and critically panned appearance in the 1990s.
The film is packed with recognizable faces, including James Saito as Mr. Kim, Michelle Buteau, Casey Wilson, Charlyne Yi (Knocked Up, This Is 40) and Karan Soni, the frenzied, beloved taxi driver from the Deadpool movies.
But Twitter lit up after Keanu Reeves appeared in a trailer for the film. Reeves’ character results in several of the film’s biggest laughs, not least among them some very amateur, decidedly un-John Wick action moves.
Much of the angst and romance revolves around food: pretentious, minimalist meals; hearty, evocative food. The orders we place seem to parallel the life choices we make. Wong and Park get the recipe just right.
Always Be My Maybe opens in select theatres and is available to stream on Netflix May 31.
