People We Meet on Vacation is predictable, but also pretty and sweet, with all those lovely vacations minus the lost baggage and delayed flights. Based on Emily Henry’s 2021 New York Times bestseller, the film follows wild child Poppy (Emily Bader) and Mr Reliable Alex (Tom Blyth), who are nevertheless the best of friends.
People We Meet on Vacation (English)
Director: Brett Haley
Cast: Tom Blyth, Emily Bader, Sarah Catherine Hook, Miles Heizer, Lukas Gage, Lucien Laviscount, Alan Ruck, Molly Shannon, Jameela Jamil
Storyline: Despite being opposites temperamentally, Alex and Poppy are the best of friends till a summer in Tuscany changes everything
Runtime: 118 minutes
Everyone but Poppy and Alex can see they are in love, and the film takes two hours, seven vacations, and a wedding for them to realise it. Told through a series of flashbacks, the story begins with a disastrous road trip from Boston College to their hometown in Linfield, Ohio, marks the beginning of Poppy and Alex’s friendship.
On a camping trip in Canada, they meet wild Buck (Lukas Gage), who has ‘memento mori’ tattooed on his chest, making Poppy think of her grandfather’s open-casket funeral instead of his hot body. Alex and Poppy make a promise to spend a week together every summer wherever they are.
Poppy drops out of college and moves to New York to work as a travel writer for a popular magazine. In the present, as Poppy returns from yet another trip to an empty fridge and piles of mail, she wonders if this life is all it is cracked up to be.
Her editor, Swapna (Jameela Jamil), wonders where her favourite travel writer, who would have killed to have this job five years ago, has gone.
Poppy gets a call from David (Miles Heizer), Alex’s brother, asking her why she has not RSVPed for his wedding in Barcelona. She says she cannot make it as she has a work thing in Santorini (fancy!) and also that Alex and his girlfriend Sarah (Sarah Catherine Hook) might not want her there.
We learn that Alex and Poppy have not spoken to each other since a vacation in Tuscany two years ago. Despite initially not wanting to go for the wedding, Poppy does make it to Barcelona and there is the wedding, memories, Taylor Swift songs, the rain, a broken air conditioner, declarations of love, a misunderstanding and a final sweet reconciliation.
The movie seems to have long stretches where nothing happens and then rushes through the big drama in the last 20 minutes. All the locations are sun-kissed and lovely, and Bader has excellent comic timing. The chemistry between Bader and Blyth is good with Lucien Laviscount once again saying “mate” (since when did ‘mate’ become shorthand for British?) and not getting the girl.
While People We Meet on Vacation most definitely does not herald the revival of the rom-com, it is a pleasant enough way to spend two hours.
People We Meet on Vacation is currently streaming on Netflix
