Metacritic score: 67
Always Be My Maybe
The rom-com starring Ali Wong and Randall Park is streaming on Netflix.
Alissa Wilkinson covered film and culture for Vox. Alissa is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.
Years ago, as kids, Sasha (Ali Wong) and Marcus (Randall Park) were best friends. Then, near the end of high school, they had sex in Marcus’s car. And then they lost touch. But as fate would have it, their paths cross again as adults. Sasha is now a celebrity chef; Marcus works for his dad, repairing air conditioners. Are they soulmates?
Always Be My Maybe, co-written by Park, Wong, and Michael Golamco (and directed by Fresh Off the Boat’s Nahnatchka Khan), centers on a common rom-com trope — the one that got away. And though it’s predictable in many ways, it stands out for its specificity about the Asian-American experience; as Vox’s Alex Abad-Santos writes in his review, “It’s conscious of what it means to be a person of color in an environment where there aren’t many.” (Plus, it’s got an extended Keanu Reeves cameo.)
