“You’ve Got Mail” swaps out bookstores and emails for auto shops, socket wrenches and an online car forum in Amazon’s latest rom-com, “Maintenance Required.” Released Oct. 8, the film switches lanes from the typical rom-com formula with surprisingly entertaining results
The movie follows Charlie (Madelaine Petsch), a car lover who runs an all-female mechanic shop called O’Malley’s. When Miller Boys, a corporate competitor of O’Malley’s, moves across the street and starts stealing business, Charlie shares her worries with her anonymous online confidant, Bullnose. What Charlie doesn’t know is that Bullnose’s real identity is Beau (Jacob Scipio), a corporate shark at Miller Boys and one of the very same people trying to shut O’Malley’s down for good.
From the synopsis alone, it’s obvious why this film has been compared to the beloved “You’ve Got Mail,” starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. In the 1998 rom-com, Ryan’s character struggles to keep her independent bookstore afloat against a corporate book retailer, owned by Hanks’ character, sets up shop around the corner from hers. As their respective businesses compete to shut each other down and survive, Hanks and Ryan are also falling in love online after meeting anonymously in an AOL chat room.
As soon as I mentally made that comparison, I was not hopeful for the fate of this movie. While I love “You’ve Got Mail” and think the romance between Ryan and Hanks makes for one of the more creative rom-coms I’ve seen, I wasn’t looking forward to a sorry recreation of a film I already knew. I feel like more and more lately, rom-coms lack originality. “Maintenance Required” seemed like it was ready to be a perfect example of this.
While I was not entirely wrong about the similarities between the two films, I was happily surprised by how much I enjoyed watching the Amazon rom-com.
To start things off, the chemistry between Petsch and Scipio became an outstanding factor in what made the film so fun to watch. The leads in a rom-com often make or break the movie. Do they have chemistry? Does their relationship seem realistic? It’s factors such as these that help take what would otherwise be a stereotypical, cheesy rom-com and make it kind of great.
When it comes to Charlie and Beau, you’re cheering for them almost the entire time. Charlie in particular becomes a character the audience can really root for throughout the film. She’s fun, a little bit hopeless when it comes to romance and her dedication to cars and the future of O’Malley’s is admirable. You want her to get that happy ending she deserves, and the way her and Beau’s awkward energy just clicks from the beginning makes it all the more obvious they belong together.
However, what really makes this film a fun watch are the side characters. Madison Bailey and Katy O’Brian play Izzy and Kam, Charlie’s best friends and employees at O’Malley’s. While it felt slightly unbelievable that the two characters weren’t dating after the amount of chemistry they had throughout the film, Kam and Izzy stood out as strong female secondary leads.
Kam, in particular, was a favorite of mine. I recognized O’Brian, an IU alumna, from her previous roles on films like A24’s “Love Lies Bleeding” and the latest “Mission: Impossible” film, so I was excited to see how she would do in a movie so different from her typical work. While rom-coms aren’t a common part of O’Brian’s filmography, she plays Kam brilliantly. The fun and fierce best friend to Charlie was one of the only characters who never once felt like she was shoving the “female mechanic” trope down my throat. And, maybe more importantly, her insistence on getting Charlie out of her shell makes for some of the funniest parts of the entire film.
Another character who excelled at playing the comedic relief role was Mr. Miller (Jim Gaffigan). The CEO of Miller Boys wasn’t on screen for a lot of the movie, but the moments he was sure were memorable. Gaffigan’s comedic portrayal of an out of touch CEO works so well, that at points it felt more like a scene straight out of “Saturday Night Live” than anything else.
As is typical of most rom-coms now, this movie wasn’t perfect. At times the film felt like it was playing too much into the feminist lens.
As a woman who loves cars, I am all for seeing women kick butt in the auto industry. But there are many points in "Maintenance Required” that felt extremely performative. I don’t need Petsch to repeatedly state how underrepresented and undervalued women are in the motor industry to know that everyone underestimates how capable she is. It may be one of the more realistic truths of the film, but it isn’t one that needs to be restated to the viewer every five minutes.
Despite this, "Maintenance Required” is more fun than I could have possibly imagined. The writing may be cheesy at points, and the characters may have their more than cringey moments, but with a rom-com such as this, the only thing that matters to me is if it can make me laugh. It’s an expectation that was surpassed many times throughout watching.
So, whether you’re a sucker for a sweet love story or you just want to admire some vintage vehicles, "Maintenance Required” is a joyride from start to finish.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated with the correct release date of the film.
