Released on Netflix Friday, Jan. 9, and directed by Brett Haley, People We Meet on Vacation is a heartfelt romantic comedy based on the book of the same title by acclaimed author Emily Henry. With a strong cast and plenty of creative promise, People We Meet on Vacation cultivates a calming sense of summer through aesthetic sets and drool-worthy vacation food as Poppy Wright (Emily Bader) and Alex Nilsen (Tom Blyth) navigate their friendship across dream travel destinations, which are sure to keep viewers engaged.

Poppy, a lonely writer living in New York City, loves to travel the world but never quite can find a place where she feels at home. Through flashbacks and memories, her story slowly, and a little agonizingly, unfolds as past relationships resurface. Alex and Poppy first met in college during their road trip back to their hometown, Linfield, Ohio. Off on a rocky start, Poppy showed up one hour late and proceeded to spill her breakfast burrito all over Alex’s Subaru. After a rather treacherous night in a motel, Poppy and Alex seem to have gotten on more friendly terms. 

Summers go by, and Alex and Poppy are soon best friends, meeting up every summer to see the “vacation versions” of themselves. From camping al fresco to adventures in New Orleans, the vacation versions of Alex and Poppy never get bored with one another. But do their true selves feel the same? When the pair reunite in Tuscany with each other’s partners, tensions seem to rise following a pregnancy scare, which leads to a close-call cheating scandal.

Nine summers later, when Poppy receives a call from Alex’s brother, David (Miles Heizer), that he is getting married in Barcelona and would love for Poppy to attend, she is hesitant. She and Alex are not on good terms, and she is uneasy about reuniting with him. After an awkward phone call with him, she ends up telling him she will be in Barcelona anyway for “work.” Reunited in Barcelona, it’s not just the weather that heats up; Alex and Poppy share countless deep conversations, reflecting on their past adventures and realizing their importance to each other could be more than just a friendship.

With their platonic past behind them, Alex and Poppy embark on one last adventure, realizing their attraction for one another in an overly dramatized moment complete with rain, moody lighting, and cheesy music. But at the end of the day, Alex is still a homebody, and Poppy is a travel-loving free spirit; the pair are too different. At David’s wedding, Alex realizes Poppy isn’t willing to start a life with him in Linfield, as she doesn’t share his need to settle down and still enjoys her itinerary-free lifestyle.

But of course, what is a romance movie without a dramatic chase scene turned into a dramatic love confession? Poppy quits her job, gives up her travel-loving personality, and returns to Linfield to confess once more her love for Alex, this time not in romantic Barcelona but on a sidewalk median in lovely Ohio. While Alex and Poppy finally ending up together is predictable and necessary for the movie to work, the quick shift in their feelings for each other throughout the movie made it hard to follow, and the pair is ultimately hard to root for at times. 

Despite Alex’s good looks (shout-out to the casting team) and a few quippy one-liners, the writing in People We Meet on Vacation is not what viewers expected, especially because the movie is based on a well-written book. Poppy has little substantive dialogue, only giving out deep one-liners when she is under the influence, making her appear ditzy and dull, giving Alex all the credit for being the mature one with his life together and all the good dialogue. Moreover, the movie portrays Poppy’s love for adventure as a negative trait and makes being single seem like a death sentence at times, and it doesn’t give Alex’s cute Subaru enough screen time.  

While the setting and the movie’s soundtrack were engaging and pleasant, the writing was a disappointment in a film that had so much potential and strength coming from the book. If Poppy had been truer to her witty nature, she could have been more favorable in viewers’ eyes and a character the audience could not only relate to but also look up to. Between carefree camping, awkward car drives, and wholesome dancing, this movie’s focus on friendship stood out over its romcom qualities, earning three out of five feathers.