Director: Brett Haley
Writers: Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo
Stars: Emily Bader, Tom Blyth, Sarah Catherine Hook
Synopsis: Poppy wants to explore the world and Alex prefers to stay home with a good book, but somehow they are the very best of friends. They live far apart, but for a decade they have spent one week of summer vacation together.
When it comes to the young adult romantic comedy, Netflix’s adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation hits all the endogenous zones the genre packages as gifts to the audience. The will-they-or-won’t-they question hangs in the air. The total disregard for whether they are really right for each other or not. Sure, opposites attract, but similarities are what sustain. Though watching two people admire how similar their queues are doesn’t increase subscriptions.
Of course, don’t forget to make them both attractive pieces of eye candy you just want to pick up and put in your pocket, then send them all over the world to exotic locations. You have all the trappings of what makes The Bachelor franchise so appealing, which you have to tip your hat to the writer of the source material for, knowing almost any studio executive would leap and salivate over it, in one quick YA rom-com 90-minute streaming shot.
Yet, while you may find the performances the People You Meet on Vacation charming, the chemistry palpable, and moments endearing, you cannot shake the fact that the structure of the script’s high-concept emotional delivery lacks two important things when it comes to moving the story from script to screen: there is not one person they meet on vacation who is interesting enough to remember, and the main characters lack emotional intelligence.
The story follows twenty-something Poppy (Emily Bader), a travel writer who has left the quaint suburban life in Ohio for New York City. Even while traveling to exciting locations and writing about them, she finds herself lonely, with no one to share the experience. Her boss, Swapna (Jameela Jamil), notices her disinterest, as if she is just going through the motions. However, when she gets a call from her friend David (Love, Simon’s Miles Heizer), who reminds her she hasn’t RSVP’d to his wedding, we learn why.
Poppy is worried Alex (Tom Blyth) may be there, something David promptly admonishes her for since Alex is David’s brother. You see, Alex first met Poppy by giving her a ride to their hometown of Linfield, Ohio. At the time, they were both attending Boston College (and yet they never met or knew each other, so much for small worlds). Poppy talks a mile a minute, has no sense of boundaries, and significantly shows up an hour late. Alex is more tightly wound than a CBS news executive editing nightclub news pieces.
Alexi is the anxious type, full of anxiety and a pragmatic way of thinking. Of course, as they make the trek, they begin to understand one another and develop a friendship. Their story then oscillates between the present and flashbacks to their annual vacations together. So, instead of blowing off the wedding, we see Poppy go to Barcelona under the pretense she will be their for work anyway, but she really misses her best friend.
People We Meet on Vacation is from director Brett Haley, who wrote and directed one of my favorite films of 2018, Hearts Beat Loud. Working from a script by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, based on Emily Henry’s novel of the same name, the movie’s secret weapon is the likable performances and serious heat that Bader and Blyth bring to our streaming screens. Yes, each character is a cliché, but they are so winning you can’t help but root for them.
Though the script waters down the book’s themes and color, it is quite an accomplishment for any young adult fiction. None of the people they meet are memorable, funny, or stand out in any way. Nor do they enhance the main characters. Some flashbacks are designed to give you some understanding of their fallout and emotional payoffs. However, these scenes are botched repeatedly. Alex makes a big deal about how he can never get over the last time they saw each other. Then, you watch the scene, and nothing happens or is even hinted at. No overture, no rejections, that left me mystified.
In fact, Alex is so whiny and mopey that it actively clashes with his supposedly pragmatic nature. The moment they reunite at the wedding, he spirals into wounded rejection because Poppy has actual adult concerns, like her job and where she will live. (Her resignation letter to her boss is one of the most laughable, eye-rolling cases of twenty-something, Big Apple Peter Pan syndrome I’ve seen in years.) While some may say he is wearing his emotions on his sleeve, his insecurity and attachment style are red flags.
That’s a shame, because both actors are excellent, with Blyth delivering one of the year’s most underrated (and underseen) performances in Plainclothes, and Bader radiating the kind of winning appeal and emotional sincerity that recalls a young Sally Field. If they had taken the time to let moments breathe, linger, and include thoughtful dialogue, as Haley is known to do in his previous work, they could have made a YA film that was not only more meaningful but also a story told with truth.
Of course, People We Meet on Vacation is made for a specific audience that will surely eat this type of movie up, which I might as well accept, since this will likely have me yearning for the days when studios didn’t depend on AI research that leaves me free-falling into the algorithmic void.
You can stream People We Meet on Vacation exclusively on Netflix
