‘People We Meet on Vacation’ Movie Review: A Pretty, Pretty Charming Rom-Com Travelogue
Photo from Netflix
From Jeremy Kibler
One of these days, we’ll get a romantic fiction adaptation between two normal-looking or even unattractive people. But for now, attractive people are much more marketable. Based on Emily Henry’s 2021 best-seller, People We Meet on Vacation tries to bring a will-they-or-won’t-they friction to platonic male-female friendship, even if we know the by-plane journey is the destination. It isn’t quite When Harry Met Sally… (then again, what is?), but this beach-read confection is pretty, pretty charming, and pretty hard to dislike.
Yes, this is When Alex Met Poppy… for the Instagram generation. Luckily, Emily Bader and Tom Blyth’s chemistry is more than enough to paper over the script’s formulaic and eventually strained plotting. Poppy Wright (Bader) is a NYC-based travel writer who flies by the seat of her pants. She nearly declines attending a Barcelona wedding for friend David (Miles Heizer) because of Alex Nilsen (Blyth), David’s brother and Poppy’s former best friend. Poppy also ends up going to the wedding because of Alex with whom she hasn’t communicated in two years.
Director Brett Haley (Hearts Beat Loud) and writers Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo bounce between the present and the past, filling in the historical gaps of Poppy and Alex’s friendship. They’re opposites, of course, and opposites first attracted nine years ago at Boston College. After Poppy practically invited herself to ride shotgun in Alex’s car back home to their mutual Ohio hometown, their first mistake was making a pact to vacation together every year — even if they were dating someone else. (They’re like Will and Grace, except they’re both straight.) What happened in Tuscany two summers ago surely won’t matter because Poppy and Alex deserve each other.
Like an adorable puppy that jumps into your lap, paws at you, and won’t stop licking your face, People We Meet on Vacation accrues a lot of charm and travel wish-fulfillment that’s hard to resist. It doesn’t fully start out that way, though. Upon meeting Poppy in flashbacks, she is an undeniable “Manic Pixie Dream Girl,” or more of a quirky construct than a real person. Free-spirited, talkative, and a little weird, Poppy could understandably be that friend you deny giving a ride because she’d never stop talking. And yet, Emily Bader brings an offbeat warmth, energy, and likability to this hyperactive character who stops being annoying and starts being adorable.
Tom Blyth gets to be more grounded, verging on boring by comparison, as itinerary-minded Alex, but there is an undeniable spark and personality balance between these two friends who could be more. It’s often rare to find a film where two characters could work as just friends. Poppy and Alex care so deeply for one another and look out for each other as friends should. It’s also nice when they finally get on the same as the audience and realize they’ve already found their person. Like when they pretend to be a couple in New Orleans, there’s no faking what they have during a dance number to Paula Abdul’s “Forever Your Girl” (Poppy’s favorite song that is made a bop again).
There may not be too many new sights to see—the final itinerary the story takes is never in doubt—but Poppy and Alex are lovely to go on vacation with for two hours. Lookers like Lukas Gage, Sarah Catherine Hook, and Lucien Laviscount also reliably round out the supporting cast, but there could have always been more of Molly Shannon and even Alan Ruck, who are nonetheless both great to see in only one (!) scene as Polly’s lovably eccentric, sex-positive parents.
While some Netflix features just top out at being pleasant distractions while folding laundry, this wanderlusty romantic-comedy is destined to be perfectly sweet and breezy viewing on an airplane. It’s not a trip to remember forever, but it’s a trip you might want right now.
Rating: 3/5
People We Meet on Vacation is now streaming on Netflix.
