People We Meet on Vacation Review: Are There Still Original Rom-Coms?
A charming but imperfect Netflix rom-com that earns its ending — compared to When Harry Met Sally, Past Lives, and Anyone But You (Now streaming on Netflix)
People We Meet on Vacation is a genuinely enjoyable rom-com that suffers, at least initially, from a casting problem.
My biggest issue early on was charisma. I didn’t quite buy the leads as people you’d find attractive or charismatic enough to see yourselves in their shoes. This is a genre that lives and dies on appeal. Swap in someone like Sarah Catherine Hook (who actually had a minor role in the film) and pair her with Glen Powell, and this would have carried more cultural gravitas. Rom-coms demand a very specific kind of likability from both the actors and the characters they play.
Midway through, though, the film started to win me over. It began to feel more intentional, more assured. The difficult thing about making a rom-com is that people assume all the stories have already been told. I don’t really buy that idea. Films like Barbarian,Weapons, and Thelma prove that originality is still possible. And perhaps the strongest quality of this film is that, despite its familiar framework, it does feel original. There are clear references to past rom-coms, but the story never feels copy-pasted or “frankensteined” together.
This movie clearly knows its lineage. The structure echoes When Harry Met Sally: two people, bad timing, years of emotional near-misses. My wife immediately caught that the opening scene is a direct homage to how Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal first meet. Once that clicked, I stopped resisting the references and let the movie be what it wanted to be.
The characters do grow on you, more the woman than the man. Emily Bader becomes increasingly likable as the film goes on. Toward the end, she even gives off a bit of a Debra Messing slash Alexandra Daddario vibe. There’s a scene that mirrors a “first look,” where she comes out in a dress, framed against a colorful, thematic backdrop, with Tom Blyth turning around to see her. The moment works emotionally, though it could have been staged better.
Tom Blyth, on the other hand, left me confused. My wife kept referring to his look as “sad boy.” We understand that his character, Alex, is meant to be a square. But the performance sometimes makes it feel like the actor himself is the square. This is most apparent in scenes where he’s supposed to be coming out of his shell (“Vacation Alex”). The script tells us he’s loosening up, but the performance doesn’t quite land.
Something my wife and I are always critical in rom-coms: is Poppy a manic pixie dream girl? Yes. She is. She’s the lively, spirited woman who pulls a glum, uninteresting man into a bigger, wilder, more discoverable world. That’s usually a minus for us. But the original book was written by a woman, and the self-awareness softens it enough that we gave it a pass.
Structurally, the film checks a lot of rom-com boxes. There’s New York. There’s a small town, complete with overeager parents. There are road trips and changing romantic cities scattered across the world. There are emotional confrontations walking down a quiet street at night, just as you get into your hotel. There’s a dance break that reveals a different side of the characters. There’s a kissing scene while being drenched in rain. There are also memorable, quotable lines, the kind rom-coms rely on to linger. Checks a lot of boxes.
The soundtrack deserves its own space. It’s very good, and very millennial: Kings of Convenience, Grimes, Rebirth Brass Band, Cigarettes After Sex, and of course Taylor Swift herself. The music does a lot of emotional lifting.
Separate from that, there’s a strong millennial sensibility in the worldview. We grew up on Gen-X rom-coms, but we weren’t living those lives yet. This one feels written from inside the phase it’s depicting, not in hindsight.
What surprised me most was how thoughtfully the relationship was mapped across locations. My wife pointed out that each place wasn’t just aesthetic filler. Each trip revealed something specific about where they were emotionally. That grounding helped sell the romance, even when the chemistry wavered.
My wife also has her own criteria for a good rom-com: atmosphere, great outfits, and charming characters. On those fronts, the film mostly succeeds. The atmosphere is strong. The outfits are great. The characters are charming, especially Poppy. But throughout the movie, she kept asking the same question: why would Poppy like Alex?
Toward the end, we were both reminded of One Day. Especially the final stretch. That comparison made me briefly want Poppy to get hit by a bus. I think the film would have gotten a half star higher for me if it did that, just more poetic, though this isn’t that kind of movie or story. The final scene, set in the middle of a crosswalk, also felt like a nod to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, something my wife immediately clocked.
By the end, the emotional logic works. The characters’ insecurities feel believable. The final revelations explain earlier behavior rather than rewriting it. That restraint helps.
This isn’t a favorite. It doesn’t reach the highs of Anyone But You, which cheesy as it may seem still stands for me the best rom-coms in the past decade. Films like Rye Lane and Materialists also rank higher for me. Still, this one is enjoyable and passable, the kind of film you’d recommend without hesitation if someone asked for something light, romantic, and thoughtfully made.
My score: 3 / 5 My wife’s score: 3.5 / 5 Final score: 3 / 5
