For all the bad rom-coms Netflix releases, there’s always one or two gems that pass the mark and hold up upon rewatch. People We Meet on Vacation, I’m happy to declare, is one of the good ones. That’s not to say it’s a perfect rom-com, it’s not going to be on the level of When Harry Met Sally or While You Were Sleeping, but it’s such good fun. It’s got the bones of rom-coms like 27 Dresses and How to Lose a Guy in 10 days, where the leads have enough romantic chemistry to overcome the weak spots in the script.
Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) first meet when they both carpool back to Linfield, Ohio. Poppy’s high-energy, scattered ways irritates Alex initially – she’s late, she makes a mess in his car, gets them locked out of said car – yet he finds himself enjoying the trip, and appreciating Poppy’s company. However, in present day, Poppy and Alex no longer speak to each other. The film dips back and forth between the past and present to give us a sense of who Poppy and Alex were before, and also keeps us engaged as to why the falling out happened in the first place. What happened to these best friends who spent every summer together?
Having seen Blyth in The Ballad of Snakes and Songbirds, and Bader in My Lady Jane, I knew the pair would be able to deliver on the romantic chemistry. It starts out platonic and builds to something quite distinctly romantic midway into the film. Bader is just effervescent as Poppy. In less capable hands Poppy is merely a manic pixie dream girl, but Bader helps ground her and make her quirky ways authentic and likeable. Her micro-expressions are fantastic, and she exudes so much emotion even in the smallest of moments. Like when Poppy learns of the passing of Alex’s grandma Betty, Bader’s teary-eyed gaze as she looks out the window reveals to us so much of Poppy’s interior – her sadness at Betty’s passing, the deeper lament of the distance between her and Alex, that it has gotten to a point where she’s left out of events that she would automatically be privy to when they were close.
Blyth is also great but since the story is anchored through Poppy’s perspective, he’s given less to do as Alex. The script doesn’t develop him as much as it does Poppy – a lot of Alex details from the book don’t make it to screen – but just like Bader his micro-expressions do an incredible job in helping us understand what Alex is feeling. We can chart exactly when Alex’s feelings for Poppy turns romantic as we feel his yearning and palpable disappointment when circumstances keep them at arms length.
Every rom-com needs an unforgettable set piece, like the thriller dance scene in 13 Going on 30, or Benny and the Jets in 27 Dresses. People We Meet on Vacation has Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl in New Orleans, and it’s tremendous. The choreography makes the dance look spontaneous enough, yet it still looks cohesive and is a great opportunity to show Alex in a different, sexier light. It’s lighthearted and fun, but there’s also all this touching and sensuality in the dance. This scene alone is enough to guarantee that People We Meet on Vacation won’t be lost to the winds of time. There’s also the heart-stopping moment when Poppy arrives to a rehearsal dinner to Taylor Swift’s August dressed in this gorgeous olive dress. The last time we had a fashion moment as iconic as this was Kate Hudson’s yellow dress in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.
Having started the year with the bleak reality of Stranger things season 5, it was really great to end the dire work week with such a fun rom-com. So if you’re looking for something light and escapist, People We Meet on Vacation should satisfy.
REVIEW SCORE: 3.5/5
