Maintenance Required: fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.
10 october 2025
Maintenance Required (2025) follows Charlie O'Malley, the owner of a family autoshop that was passed down to her by her late father. She doesn't do love, but she is texting a mysterious guy she met online, who likes cars just as much as she does. A new guy comes into town, right at the same time of a corporate autoshop that is about to rival hers. Unbeknownst to Charlie, this new guy, the manager of the rival shop and the guy she's texting are all one and the same...
spoiler warning from this point on
Charlie & Beau's story With her friends Izzy and Kam, Charlie O'Malley runs an all-women autoshop. She's not been in a relationship for as long as she can remember and has no interest in dating, except for the stranger that she met on the internet. They keep their identities entirely secret from each other and talk only about cars, especially the cars they're fixing. A new guy, Beau, comes into town and he and Charlie immediately have chemistry, without either of them knowing they already have online chemistry as well. Her friends egg her on to get his number, but despite Charlie seeming interested in the guy, she doesn't want to rush into it. When they run into Beau at a bar, Charlie dodges a kiss from him by a hair and runs off with her friends.
Meanwhile, Beau is opening up the new autoshop he has been sent to manage, which has opened up right across the street from Charlie's with the goal to take all her business and get her shop to close. He is known as The Closer where he works, notorious for managing the corporation's shops so well that every local shop goes out of business. Charlie and her friends show up at the shop to try and get some of their customers back, but Charlie finds out Beau is actually the manager and that he's been actively trying to keep this fact from her. Naturally, Charlie is pissed and accuses him of being a spy.
With Beau no longer being a romantic prospect for Charlie, she agrees to meet the online stranger to celebrate getting her dad's old car working. When Beau arrives and sees his online friend is Charlie herself, he decides to go over there and not tell her. Instead, he chastises her, and despite Charlie asking him to leave many times, he keeps at it instead of just telling her they're actually there to meet each other. Charlie says some unkind things to Beau, which leads him to leave and Charlie to think she got stood up by her online friend.
After this, Charlie doesn't know what to do anymore. Her business is losing money, she's not enjoying it anymore, and when she finally gave romance a chance, it blew up in her face. Twice. She confides in her friends and decides to close the autoshop, because she has other dreams and doesn't want to keep fighting for it when she's not happy in it any longer. As she pursues her dream of starting a specialised kind of autoshop, Charlie bumps into Beau multiple times over. She indulges him, but it's clear that she doesn't like him. He invites her to an old car exposition and sends her a ticket, asking her to come.
In between, Beau has a deal with his boss that once he gets his location running well, they can start working on an idea of Beau's to turn old cars into electric vehicles, are they're very popular right now. When his boss pushes the project backwards further and wants Beau to manage another location, Beau quits on the spot.
Charlie shows up to the car festival and all of the sudden it's like all their history never happened. As if there was never any bad blood and she's into Beau. They have an uncharacteristically great time together and have a little car race on their way home. Beau's car breaks down and Charlie offers him a ride home. He invites her inside for dinner, where they share a passionate kiss. During their make out session, Charlie seems to get overwhelmed and asks to go to the bathroom. Beau points her in the general direction and Charlie ends up accidentally opening the garage door, where she sees the car the online stranger sent her pictures of. She leaves immediately, but Beau runs after her. They argue in the driveway, with Charlie distraught and Beau badly trying to explain why he lied, but he has nothing much of worth to say and fumbles... horribly. Unable to trust him again, Charlie leaves.
A month later, Charlie is talking to her friends, who convince her to realise her feelings for Beau and she decides she misses the connection they had and that she does want to try to be something with him. She finds him at a roadside diner and they make up. A year later, Charlie has realised her dream and Beau is working with her in her new autoshop.
My thoughts Beau is such an asshole in this movie and he absolutely does not deserve to have Charlie. She is such a sweetheart and it's insane to me that she went back to him after he actively lied to her twice. He feigns remorse and even once says he had "no idea" what his job did to local businesses like hers, but his nickname is literally The Closer, the guy who has closed the most shops with his success... Either he is lying or just really stupid. The scene in which he finds out Charlie is the online stranger and decides to chastise her instead of telling her the truth also rubs me the wrong way. Girls, just because you have chemistry with a guy, it doesn't mean that you should go back to him! Any sane woman never would have after the way Beau treated Charlie.
Despite the horrible romance story, I loved everything else about this movie. Madelaine Petsch is great in the role of Charlie and plays the part very well. She has amazing chemistry with everyone she comes across and her friendship with Izzy and Kam is very well-written and feels real. That is exactly the kind of stupid banter I have with my friends. No character feels over the top or too much like a caricature, they genuinely feel real and like they could actually be your friend. I guess the way Beau is an asshole of a dude is also realistic... Where can a girl find a truly genuinely kind guy in this economy???
Would I recommend this movie? As a romance? Absolutely not. It's certainly a fun watch, and rooting for Charlie and her friends is very easy to do, but it gets tough when Beau starts acting like... that. As a comedy, though? Yes. I would watch a movie of Charlie, Izzy and Kam going on an adventure or just doing anything and having fun together.
Tier list Dating a man like this would be my worst nightmare, so this is 100% going into "My Worst Nightmare". Any woman deserves so much better than a guy who actively lies and deceives you for his own gain and can barely communicate his emotions clearly.
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