Always Be My Maybe
Nothing profound today, but I wanted to include a heterosexual rom com in my list this month, just to show that even rom coms about men and women getting together can be feminist. Especially because there’s absolutely nothing wrong with falling in love. Not every woman has to be a badass independent person with no time for men. That’s cool, but finding love is also just fine.
I think the reason this film is on my list is because of the way these characters find each other. To be honest, it’s not a falling in love story, because they’re already in love. They have been their whole lives. It’s one of those classic best friends to lovers stories, except it’s not classic at all. They haven’t seen each other since they were 18 and had a weird one night stand, and they’ve well and truly moved on with their lives.
Sasha has moved on so much, in fact, that she’s an up-and-coming celebrity chef who is in the process of franchising her brand. She moves back home to San Francisco to open a restaurant there and runs into her best friend and next door neighbour growing up.
Marcus seems to be floundering in life. He still plays in his high school band, and he loves it but he refuses to branch out from the same bar they play in every weekend. He still lives at home with his dad and works under him as an air-conditioning installation tradesperson. When these two reconnect, at first they clash, a lot. They’re mostly just awkward or antagonistic in turns until they finally admit they have feelings for each other and start a relationship. After a weird Keanu Reeves cameo, anyway.
“The only stars that matter are the ones you look at when you dream.” – Keanu Reeves, in this film, for some reason
This is where this movie starts to get good. Sasha’s doing her thing, being a badass chef, and Marcus can’t handle it. They show up on a red carpet together and he has to hold her purse, something he is not too happy about. He balks when she tells the paparazzi that he’s ‘just a regular guy’. Then they have a big argument about it and break up, because of course. But it’s so frustrating to watch, because she’s just trying to do her job and he’s being a pissy little child about it, frankly. Not only that, but she’s constantly trying to push him to fulfil his own potential, because she absolutely loves his band and thinks he could be super successful if he worked at it. Instead, he gets angry and refuses to go to New York with her, even though he doesn’t need to stay in SF and she does have to go to New York.
He realises almost immediately that he was an idiot (thanks to his dad shoving some tough love in his face) and starts leaving her voice messages to keep her updated on what’s going on in his life, but it’s not until he finds out she’s been buying all his band’s merch that he finally decides to fly to New York to see her.
He makes a big speech, and it’s sweet and all, but the best bit is the end, where he says, ‘Which leaves me with just one question to ask. Sasha Tran, can I hold your purse for you?’
And then they kiss and live happily ever after. But what I love about it is that this isn’t one of those stories where the successful rich girl goes home and realises she lost her roots and decides to settle down back in her home town. There’s a flavour of that (she realises she wasn’t really cooking the kind of food she wanted to), but she’s also not ashamed of the success she’s found, and she’s not apologetic for the kind of life she lives. And in the end, he’s the one that follows her around, because he has the flexibility to do that, and because she has dreams and ambitions that he doesn’t have.
It’s a nice subversion on the story where the woman decides to drop everything to follow her man around. Additionally, her story isn’t all about him. She’s going through other stuff in her life too, trying to figure out her changing relationship with her parents and dealing with her best friends having just had a baby (queer and POC representation!), so this is by no means the only thing on her radar. Her life is full of other people and things that fulfil her, and she’s not made or broken based on his love for her. She can live without him, she just chooses not to.
Honestly, this movie is really fun and sweet, and it’s so nice seeing a mainstream film about two Asian Americans falling in love, with all of the cultural heritage and tradition that comes with that. It’s also nice to see the woman come out on top for once and not have to sacrifice anything. It’s just a really nice film.
Always Be My Maybe is available to stream everywhere on Netflix.
