People We Meet on Vacation
Beach Read author Emily Henry’s breezy romance novel is an adept adaptation for Netflix.
Beach, please: Emily Bader
Photo by Daniel Escale, Courtesy of Netflix.
by CHAD KENNERK
Somewhere along the way, the romantic comedy was relegated to streaming. Once a theatrical staple of the 90s and early 2000s, romcoms now seem to arrive almost exclusively via algorithms, moving from major marquees to featured placement on a platform. The narrative that romcoms somehow belong on streaming is unlikely to change unless major studios stop treating them as such. Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy ranked as 2025’s second highest-grossing film in the UK, yet went direct to streaming in the States, one example among many a missed opportunity. Titles like Anyone But You have proven there’s still plenty of box-office appeal, while thoughtful modern entries such as Celine Song’s Materialists have shown that the genre can even find renewed critical acclaim.
Produced under Sony Pictures’ first-look deal with Netflix, People We Meet on Vacation is emblematic of the romcom’s new reality and exactly the kind of rewatchable comfort food Netflix is eager to dish up. The first screen adaptation of best-selling romance author Emily Henry (the book was published as You and Me on Vacation in the UK) is directed by Brett Haley, who has a track record for steering feel-good films (Hearts Beat Loud, I’ll See You in My Dreams). As in the summer read, burnt-out and drifting NYC travel writer Poppy (Emily Bader) latches onto a wedding invite as an escape and an accidentally-on-purpose excuse to reunite with Alex (Tom Blyth), her once-inseparable best friend. Their present-day reunion in Barcelona is interwoven with memories from a decade-plus-long travel tradition of summer trips together. Following the book’s irksome nonlinear narrative allows a survey of their long friendship in under two hours, but it also means that a majority of the movie happens in flashback. We begin with a Boston College meet-cute, a kind of gender-flipped When Harry Met Sally, complete with a long drive home and conversational sparring. A shared hotel room hearkens back to It Happened One Night, the film that consummated the genre in 1934.
From there, we hopscotch through friendcations as Poppy and Alex go camping in Squamish and pose as newlyweds in New Orleans. Alex’s on-again, off-again relationship with Sarah (Sarah Catherine Hook) looms large as the obstacle preventing ‘just friends’ from exploring opposites-attract-level sparks. Bader and Blyth are pure charm, bringing some genuine lustre to the otherwise light source material. Haley captures their adventures with postcard warmth, leaning into a nostalgia that borrows liberally from romcoms superior to this one. Openly citing Sleepless in Seattle, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Notting Hill as touchstones he hoped to emulate, Haley ultimately delivers a diverting romcom by making familiar, feel-good beats his own. A late-game conflict feels a little overwrought, prolonging what ought to be a gentle sigh into the sunset.
For anyone who lives or grew up in the Midwest, the Ohio depicted here looks suspiciously like Louisiana, complete with massive oaks and subtropical greenery. Easter eggs include a wooden Sasquatch statue modelled after 1987’s Harry and the Hendersons; Alex is seen reading an Augustus Everett novel, the leading man of Henry’s other romance Beach Read; meanwhile, the opening shot of Poppy in a beach chair pays homage to the book’s cover art. Buoyed by amiable performances, sunny locations, and a reliable premise, People We Meet on Vacation is comfort-watching a notch above the usual cringe associated with the streaming romcom. Too bad it’s destined to be half-watched while folding laundry.
Cast: Emily Bader, Tom Blyth, Sarah Catherine Hook, Lucien Laviscount, Miles Heizer, Jameela Jamil, Tommy Do, Lukas Gage, Alice Lee, Molly Shannon, Alan Ruck, Spencer Neville.
Dir Brett Haley, Pro Wyck Godfrey, Marty Bowen, Isaac Klausner, Screenplay Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo, Ph Rob C. Givens, Ed Evan Henke, Music Keegan DeWitt, Costumes Colin Wilkes, Sound Andy Hay.
3000 Pictures/Temple Hill Entertainment/Sony Pictures Releasing-Netflix.
118 mins. USA. 2025. US/UK Rel: 9 January 2026. Cert. PG-13 (US)/12 (UK).
