Despite the catchy title (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sung the Mariah Carey song from just hearing about this movie), I didn’t plan to watch Always Be My Maybe until I heard that Keanu Reeves played a role. Everyone can see that 2019 is clearly the year of Keanu. Actually, the year of Keanu started back during Christmas 2018 for me. I was bored on my couch, searching desperately through Netflix for entertainment because I was too lazy to move and find another source of fun. The Lake House starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock appeared during one of my random searches and I got excited because it’d been a while since I’d seen a Keanu movie.

I found myself teary-eyed and in love with Keanu Reeves all over again exactly one hour and forty-five minutes later. About a week later I had a flight to visit family. I don’t like being on planes so I always either find a way to sleep through the flight or pick out enough movies to last the entire flight so that I can completely transport and pretend that I’m not in the air with strangers. Sleep wasn’t an option this time because I was traveling with my extremely talkative 79-year-old grandmother. She loves action movies or anything that looks violent so after skimming through the movie options, I knew John Wick: Chapter 2 was the route to go. Grandma gets violence and gore and I get another Keanu movie.

Stepping into 2019 I picked up bullet journaling and decided I’d get more into film and watching movies and keep track of the movies and my reviews via the journal. Since I’d ended 2018 with two Keanu Reeves movies, I decided to continue into the new year with a series of his movies.

Always Be My Maybe heavily marketed that Keanu Reeves was featured in the movie, so I thought his role would be more significant than it was, but it was satisfying, nonetheless. The movie is about childhood best friends who lose touch after beginning a romance right before graduating high school. The two meet up a little over a decade later and are leading completely different lifestyles but find that they’re still deeply in love. Ali Wong’s character, Sasha, who is fresh out of a broken engagement, runs into Keanu Reeves at an event and they fall in lust. She’s absolutely infatuated and (for some reason) wants to show off her new boyfriend to the childhood friend she’s still in love with, Marcus, portrayed by Randall Park. Marcus and Keanu hate each other almost immediately, mostly because Keanu, who portrays himself in the movie, is a complete jerk. Although Keanu plays the pretty boy who everyone knows and loves, he reveals a dark side. He’s an instigating asshole who picks on Marcus and starts a fight. Turns out Neo isn’t as laid back as we all thought. Of course, Keanu Reeves is as chill and awesome as we all know he is, but it was exciting seeing him outside of his “good guy coming to save the day” character. I was wondering when it would happen. You don’t walk around with a face like that and not portray a womanizer at some point.

I felt the world needed to know my opinion on Keanu’s portrayal in Always Be My Maybe, which was an overall awesome movie. I stopped by for Keanu, but I stayed for the music and awkwardly relatable love story. This movie expresses how love always deserves a second chance and how important it is to leave your comfort zone to truly realize how greatly you can love someone else.

Always Be My Maybe is filled with pop culture references and carries strong feelings of nostalgia with its The Matrix references and awesome soundtrack which features Big Freedia, David Bowie, D’Angelo, Mariah Carey and even more 80’s and 90’s icons. It was also nostalgic for me to see Keanu Reeves in yet another role (even though I’ve been binging his movies all year) because, like every other woman, I’ve had a crush on him since forever.

I’ll be watching Always Be My Maybe at least three more times to absorb the awesomeness of the movie and I’ve already added the soundtrack to both my gym and road trip playlists because it’s just that great.