The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Maintenance Required
Romance · Comedy · 2025
Charlie, the fiercely independent owner of an all-female mechanic shop, is forced to reevaluate her future when a flashy corporate competitor moves in across the street. Seeking comfort, she turns to an anonymous online confidant - unaware she's confiding in Beau, the very rival threatening her business. As sparks fly both online and off, the truth threatens to blow everything apart.
Movie details
Maintenance Required
“Online... they’re anonymous soulmates. In real life they’re rivals.”
2025 Romance · Comedy 1h 40m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.1 / 10
Community rating
Charlie, the fiercely independent owner of an all-female mechanic shop, is forced to reevaluate her future when a flashy corporate competitor moves in across the street. Seeking comfort, she turns to an anonymous online confidant - unaware she's confiding in Beau, the very rival threatening her business. As sparks fly both online and off, the truth threatens to blow everything apart.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Maintenance Required?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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The Incredible Jessica James
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How I Got Into College
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Desperados
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A panicked young woman and her two best friends fly to Mexico to delete a ranting email she sent to her new boyfriend. On arrival, they run into her former beau, who soon gets caught up in their frantic scheme.
French Girl
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Sweet Gordon, an affable English teacher in Brooklyn, has beaten the odds; a French Girl has fallen in love with him and he’s fallen even harder back. But their future is thrown into limbo when she interviews for an executive chef position in her hometown of Quebec City. To Gordon’s dismay her future boss also happens to be her former lover, a celebrity Chef with oceanic eyes and a hit TV show. Good luck Gordon.
Girl on a Bicycle
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Paolo, an Italian tour bus driver living in Paris, has just summoned up the courage to propose marriage to his German girlfriend Greta. However, a chance encounter with a French woman on a bicycle the very next day turns Paolo's life upside down.
The List
Romance · 2023
After her fiance sleeps with a celebrity on his free pass list, Abby Meyers, with nothing but five names and a fantasy shared by millions, sets out for Los Angeles to sleep with someone from hers.
My Fake Boyfriend
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A young man in a tricky situation follows the advice of his unconventional best friend and uses social media to create a fake boyfriend to keep his awful ex-lover out of his life. But everything backfires when he meets the real love of his life, and breaking up with his fake boyfriend proves hard to do.
The Right Kind of Wrong
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A stubborn idealist spies a bride on her way to her wedding and immediately falls in love with her.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Lacey Uhlemeyer
Written by
Lacey Uhlemeyer · Erin Falconer · Roo Berry
Madelaine Petsch
Charlie
Jacob Scipio
Beau
Katy O'Brian
Kam
Madison Bailey
Izzy
Matteo Lane
Jordan
Jim Gaffigan
Mr Miller
Naomi J. Ogawa
Jenny
Court is in session
Put Maintenance Required on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.