Wong and Park play Sasha and Marcus, respectively, lifelong best friends who lost their virginities to one another right after Marcus' mother passed away. The tension of that passing led to the two engaging in an argument so fraught that they stopped speaking to one another. Sixteen years later, the two have developed their own lives, with Sasha becoming a famous chef while Marcus is still stuck in a stupor after his Mom's death that sees him working with his Dad for their electrical maintenance company and refusing to step outside of his comfort zone. When the two happen to reunite by happenstance, it begs the question of if these two former potential lovers might have a chance of finally becoming an official couple.
This storyline provides an amusing backbone for Always Be My Maybe, a film that never really breaks the mold but manages to be a mighty pleasant watch. Like many entertaining romantic-comedies, the pleasantness derives from the two lead actors, who turn out to have great chemistry together and deliver some delightful performances. Randall Park has been killing it in supporting roles in a number of projects for years now and he turns out to be a perfect fit for a romantic comedy. Park's always had an endearing quality to him as well as a knack for good comedic timing whether he was portraying a Youth Pastor/FBI Agent in Ant-Man and the Wasp or Kim-Kong Un in The Interview and both of those qualities come in mighty handy here in his portrayal of Marcus.
Playing opposite Park is Ali Wong, a comedian whom I've been entirely unfamiliar with prior to watching this film despite her stand-up comedy specials receiving widespread acclaim. I can now see why she's generated such hubbub given how funny she is in Always Be My Maybe. Among her many enjoyable comedic traits, Wong sells prolonged awkward comedy so very well. A moment where explains to other fancy restaurant patrons that she's wearing Spanx is enhanced in its comedy by how Wong knows how to time the joke just right to get the maximum awkward comedy yuks out of it. It's a hilarious moment in a performance rife with similarly humorous moments.
Wong and Park's script, penned with Michael Golamco, has an easygoing vibe to it that pleasantly places an emphasis on the charming lead characters more than anything else. However, the screenplays biggest shortcomings emerge in a clumsier third-act that tends to suffer due to a recurring sense of repetition. Most notably, Marcus and Sasha engage in two separate traditional big couple arguments about five minutes apart from each other and that ends up reducing the impact of these individual big confrontations. Similarly, a pair of sequences meant to emphasize the biggest personal foible of Marcus ends up just hammering home the same point about the character twice. Nothing is gained or learned by stretching this out for two sequences, especially since the first of them (a heart-to-heart with Marcus and his father) is so effective on its own.
To boot, the second in this pair of sequences comes complete with a gratuitous urine joke that feels weirdly out of place with the rest of the movie's style of humor. Some weirdly repetitive narrative choices and clunky attempts at humor in its final half-hour do mar Always Be My Maybe somewhat, but at least that same stretch of the story contains some potent moments of poignancy between the lead characters. And at least prior to that section of the plot we get a hysterical extended celebrity cameo that had me cackling constantly. That cameo may just be the high point of Always Be My Maybe as a whole, but even discounting that part of the proceedings, there's still plenty to enjoy in this feature, especially in the charming lead performances of Ali Wong and Randall Park.
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