Always Be My Maybe & # 39; Shines with a thousand lights when it's the weirdest: Revision

Image: Ed Araquel / Netflix

When this reporter moviegoers learned that comedians Ali Wong and Randall Park were teaming up to write and play in a romantic comedy, the reaction was actually "injecting it directly into my veins".

Their Netflix output Always be my maybe, realized by Boat feesNahnachka Khan, do not defy gender conventions, but you still feel like a triumph. The film flourishes by adopting its own quirk and showcasing its celebrity writers, which is all we wanted out anyway.

Always be my maybe This is the story of Sasha (Wong) and Marcus (Park), two best childhood friends who meet more than ten years after awkward badual intercourse. The film renounces to explain it in the interest of time; it's just after the sudden death of Marcus' mother, who was more of a mother to Sasha than she thought hers. It dissolves a decade of friendship in a matter of minutes and ends with the taking of Sasha, the sting of a rejected heart blow erasing any instinct to be there for a friend in mourning or staying in touch to move forward .

Years later, Sasha is a famous New York-based chef, while Marcus stayed in San Francisco to live and work with his father. Park and James Saito have a delightful father-and-son dynamic, immediately reversing all expectations of Asian immigrant parents and their children from their first cigarette and dance scene together. The film is not judgmental about Marcus' life choices, but he is objectively stagnant compared to Sasha. Even his group – together since their teenage years – is at a dead end and, in an almost cringeworthy romantic comedy, he goes out with someone who is openly unnerving and is erected into Sasha's inferiority.

As Sasha, Wong presents himself as a true movie star, and we can only hope that the attention of this film and its incendiary stand-up means that we will see so many characters in the future.

Like so many other Netflix movies, including Ibiza, Someone of great, and Implement, Always be my maybe derives its observability from his writing. Although the film rarely surprises with plot points, it still serves a meticulous humor that will make you laugh uncontrollably. The comedy scenes of Wong and Park are deliciously presented, each joke and each performance being refined for maximum comic effectiveness. There are three celebrity references in the movie, each so hyper-specific and seemingly random that one can only imagine the fun that they had to try all the permutations before finding the best option.

Speaking of celebrities, Keanu Reeves is undeniably the star of the movie (and the trailer). In the hands of Khan, who brought us James Van Der Beek as James Van Der Beek Do not trust B– Apt. 23"Keanu Reeves" is a manic delight, as evidenced by the west coast of Sasha, an illustration of the gap between his life and that of Marcus, but also a juxtaposition so strange that you do not feel so bad that you throw him the head in laughter. and enjoy the ride.

The film is also populated by powerful actors, even on the periphery. Michelle Buteau is a charming criminal childhood friend and Sasha's adult colleague, and dead PoolKaran Soni plays beautifully in Park as a muffled group mate of Marcus. The nostalgia of the 90s is omnipresent, not so much in the direct references as in its influence on the years of formation of the characters, who proved right when they fell in love.

It might be nice to unpack Always be my maybe Regardless of its revolutionary use of two American actors of Asian descent and mainly of color characters, we are still at a point in Hollywood where this deserves discussion and praise. We are still at a point where this critic feels chills all over his body when two non-white scenes share a love scene, and Park raising Wong on his hips in the countryside is an "all-out".

Always be my maybe never succeed in rooting you for Marcus and Sasha, who may have a long story rather than being really good to each other. But you will definitely play Wong, Park, Khan and the rest of their team and for a film that infuses entertainment into every scene. As the title indicates, it may not be that one, but it will always be there for you.

Always be my maybe is now streaming on Netflix.