Always Be My Maybe

Always Be My Maybe is an 2019 film released on Netflix. The movie stars Ali Wong and Randall Park. The supporting cast include James Saito, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang, Keanu Reeves, Susan Park, Daniel Dae Kim, Karan Soni, Charlyne Yi, Lyrics Born, and Casey Wilson. The backdrop of the movie takes place mainly in San Francisco. The movie also had a limited release in the theatres.

In 1996, 13 year old Sasha Tran is a latchkey kid whose parents are busy running a restaurant. Sasha is best friends with the next door neighbor, Marcus Kim. Sasha spends a lot of time with Marcus's Korean family and the mom, Judy. Judy teaches Sasha many of her Korean recipes. We see their friendship progress from 13 years old to 15 years old to their last year in high school, 18 years old. Marcus is now teaching an 18 year old Sasha how to fish at the pier when they find out that Judy was in an accident and has passed. Sasha decides to take Marcus out to help with his grief. They both end up losing their virginity to each other. Marcus is not able to handle the sudden sense of emotions and starts being a jerk. Essentially ending their friendship. Fast forward 16 years, Sasha is now a world famous chef in Los Angeles. She is expanding her empire into her old hometown of San Francisco. In SF, she reconnects with Marcus, whom has gone into the HVAC business with his dad, Harry. As life would have it, they end up bumping into each other around town. Will there be something there or will it be a terrible mistake to try to rekindle a past relationship from their teenage years?

Wow, I was really impressed by this movie. Even though, my life story follows nothing like the main stars of the movie. The portrayal of their lives had such a similar feel to mine. It starts with the spam, rice, and furitake sprinkles to the dim sum. The integration of the many varieties of Asian food tell the back story of our lives. Even though we may have grown up with Asian influences, it was from multiple sources.

Back to the movie. The pairing of Wong and Park was very believable. They had instant chemistry and their journey was very easy to follow. The dialogue was very well written and it didn't seem to be pretentious. Even during Keanu's scenes, the dialogue was believable. Which leads to comedic chemistry for the leads and the ensemble cast that was put around them. This was a carefully crafted movie and it starts with the dialogue. The comedic elements are lent to moving the story along and it made you fall in love with them.

Why is this the most realistic representation of Asian Americans in film so far? First, this movie did not have to sell itself as an all Asian cast because they are not the most recent. The movie takes place in SF, a hub of Asian Americans. The lives they live revolve around both Asians and non-Asians. The food they eat! Spam and rice, Korean, Dim Sum, and Vietnamese all get some love. Asians may prefer their motherlands food the best, but that doesn't mean they do not eat a lot of other Asian food. This movie does that.

It is hard to not compare this to last summers run away hit Crazy Rich Asians (CRA). But they are completely different films as noted above. I've watched this twice already and love every minute both times. CRA was on HBO reruns recently and I cringed when I watched the meeting the mother and honor stuff. Because that's so infrequent in my world, that I really only understood it intelligently but not from experience. Always Be My Maybe goes for just regular folk living their lives and they are Asian. I am sure an essay is needed to distinguish the two. For me, I loved Always Be My Maybe.

Their is also the issue of Asian leadership. In the general US culture, Asians represent very little of the corporate leadership. The movie doesn't directly address that issue, but it represents all the Asian Americans that went to small business ownership. Sasha Tran has a successful restaurant empire. Harry and Sons is a small HVAC business. Who says Asians lack leadership when they all own so many businesses where they go.

If you don't have Netflix, this would be a good use of the 30 day free trial. If you have it, why have you waited so long. Go watch it. Maybe twice. I for one will be trying to watch this again soon.