Romance is a theme that often remains, no matter the genre. The Fall Guy (2024), Hit Man (2023), and Wicked (2024) are perfect examples, in recent memory, of action, thriller, or fantasy-musical films that still have romance at their heart. Yet we are seeing the decline of well-written romantic comedies. In the last five years, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018) started a wave in teen rom-coms that brought more of these movies to young adults, and the box-office success of Will Gluck’s Anyone But You (2023) proves that audiences want it.
Netflix’s latest, People We Meet on Vacation (2026), hopes to carry the rom-com momentum even further with the outgoing, adventurous Poppy (Emily Bader) and the reserved, risk-averse Alex (Tom Blyth) at the helm. These college friends made a pact that, no matter what they were doing, who they were dating, or what obstacles life threw their way, they would always meet in the summer to share a vacation and stay connected as life pulled them in different directions.
The narrative is sharp and thoroughly engaging, a testament to Emily Henry, the author of the New York Times Bestselling book on which the film is based. Romantic comedies could easily fall into the trap of regurgitating the same formula with the same plot, but what makes these stories the most compelling is when the writers build a romance around fully formed characters — not the other way round. Very few rom-coms are able to strike that balance, but Henry does exactly that.
The film’s timeline spans over nine years and is told in a non-linear structure, which can make it hard to make your main characters feel either as if they haven’t grown or as if they’ve evolved too quickly. Screenplay writers Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazoo ensure we spend enough time with Poppy and Alex at each stage of their lives to be sold on these characters’ development. Poppy becomes a travel journalist, and Alex stays in Linfield, Ohio, living a quieter life. Still, the two share a deep bond.
This bond is amplified by Blyth and Bader’s magnetic chemistry. When they are alongside each other (which is a lot of the film), they bring an electric surge of romantic tension whilst portraying an extremely realistic friendship. Blyth does a fair bit of the heavy lifting, as it is his characterization of Alex gradually wearing down his original closed-mindedness that makes him more susceptible to Bader’s vivacious, bold depiction of Poppy, subsequently pushing audiences to believe their love story.
For male actors, being in a rom-com used to make or break you. It was almost an important rite of passage to prove that you have the charisma that it takes to be a leading man. Actors like George Clooney, Richard Gere, Ryan Gosling, and, more recently, Glen Powell have all taken a leaf out of that book. But I want more. Like Blyth, I want to see actors like Austin Butler, Dev Patel, and Damson Idris take a stab at a rom-com. And I want them to yearn!
These are the two golden keys to making a rom-com work: a unique, riveting premise and palpable chemistry between the two romantic leads. These two keys are what make Brett Haley’s film click into place.
The New Orleans sequence only reinforces the reason why we need more light-hearted rom-coms. Just like in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003) with the “You’re So Vain” rendition and in 27 Dresses (2008) with the “Bennie & the Jets” rendition, we see Poppy and Alex give their own non-singing, all-dancing rendition of “Forever Your Girl.” You desperately need scenes like these in your rom-coms to make the audience giggle and kick their feet because that’s exactly how these films should make you feel.
If I were to nitpick about the narrative, it was disappointing to see Poppy put more of herself on the line than Alex did, with Poppy getting not one but two massive declaration scenes, whilst we settled for one small one from Alex. I’ll say it again: we need loud and proud male yearning in films, and this could have been an excellent opportunity to do so.
There were times when the dialogue was spoon-fed to us, like when Poppy says, “I hate running” towards the end of the film, a callback to her earlier mention. Yet there were visuals that were more subtle, like when Alex holds Poppy’s hand even though he said he hated it previously. It felt like a cram to fit this large narrative into one hour and 43 minutes, but honestly, does this really matter when we finally got our well-needed fill of romantic comedies?
The worst thing they could have done to this movie is release it on Netflix, and that is exactly what they did. With a diehard fanbase like Henry’s, a slot in theatres at the beginning of July would have made the film a killing. With a recent announcement that two more of Henry’s novels are being adapted into features in collaboration with Netflix, I hope that they learn from this mistake and give them the theatrical release they deserve.
Blyth, Bader, and Henry remind us of the gaping hole left by the lack of romantic comedies and provide a temporary fill with People We Meet on Vacation. I only hope that we continue to see more and in theatres. The sooner, the better.
Review Courtesy of Nandita Joshi
Feature Image Credit to Netflix via Harper’s Bazaar