Ali Wong’s rom-com, Always Be My Maybe, is a clear titular riff off Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” (and it is Mimi-approved), and the trailer is cut with the song, so prepare to have the “do-do-doop” part in your head for the next month. The trailer for Always Be My Maybe is here, it’s super cute, and that goddamn song has been stuck in my head ever since I saw it (which is undoubtedly also Mimi-approved). The movie is co-written by Wong, Randall Park, and Michael Golamco, and it’s directed by Fresh Off the Boat’s Nahnatchka Khan. It’s being advertised as “From the highly fertile mind of Ali Wong”, and it’s about childhood friends who reconnect and one (Park) wants to confess his love while the other (Wong) is having “freaky-ass sex” with someone else. I’m into it, Wong is hilarious and I am always glad to see Randall Park in stuff.
So is the freaky-ass sex with Keanu Reeves? He co-stars in the movie. Given his general willingness to be in anything, he could be playing an actual character, or voicing like, a snail someone talks to during a key moment of crisis. Here’s the thing, if he plays the Other Guy in a rom-com and gets passed over again, I am going to have to Have Words with rom-com writers. I still haven’t recovered from Diane Keaton dumping Doctor Keanu in Something’s Gotta Give. Always Be My Maybe looks adorable and I am here for Rom-Com Hero Randall Park, but not at the expense of KEANU REEVES. There’s just no world in which you do not choose Keanu, if Keanu appeals to you at all. So either Keanu has to start getting the girl in the rom-com—don’t bring up Destination Wedding, that movie is horrible and his character is an MRA monster, let’s pretend it never happened—or people have to stop putting Keanu in their rom-coms as the Other Guy. It’s just not believable. Keanu is not an Other Guy. Sorry Randall Park, but it’s going to be Keanu every time.
#AlwaysBeMyMaybe comes out May 31st! pic.twitter.com/uL0uNvIYpN
— Ali Wong (@aliwong) April 23, 2019