Spoilers ahead for “People We Meet on Vacation.”

Emily Henry is considered by many romance readers to be the queen of the modern rom-com novel. Since 2020, she’s churned out hit after hit, such as “Beach Read,” “Book Lovers,” and “Funny Story.” Her 2021 novel, “People We Meet on Vacation,” was adapted by Netflix in 2026. Its release was charged with fans’ excitement for this first of multiple planned Henry novel adaptations. 

The adaptation is unique in that it is structured in a nonchronological format, bouncing between the yearly summer vacations that Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) take together. Total opposites, Poppy and Alex meet in college and bond over an experience of traveling to their hometown that goes wildly off plan, locking the keys in the car and everything. 

On a camping trip in Canada a year later, they vow to meet each summer for a vacation, but over time, their feelings morph into something that might put their friendship in jeopardy. Unfortunately, as the film progresses, choppy script writing, lackluster performances, and irritating messaging put the film in jeopardy too. 

The film’s first half is riotously funny. At the start of the movie, Poppy and Alex meet in a clear mimicry to the car ride scene in “When Harry Met Sally” (1989). Their personalities clash and jokes fly left and right. Their first annual trip together a year after they meet — camping in Canada — is full of young adult shenanigans and skinny dipping gone wrong. Sparks fly, especially a few years later during their drunken and adventure-filled trip to New Orleans, leading watchers to expect a funny and heartfelt film. 

However, the second half brings that expectation to a record scratching halt. 

During the scenes of their trip to Italy, where their significant others at the time are present, the script and the acting performances begin to fall apart. After an almost kiss between Alex and Poppy after she has a pregnancy scare with her current partner, she wakes up the next morning to find Alex has proposed to his girlfriend Sarah (Sarah Catherine Hook). This leaves the audience whiplashed and cuts off any chance of a mature conversation between Poppy and Alex about what happened. 

Worse, Poppy tries to congratulate him later and Alex turns defensive. He sounds the death knell for their friendship, saying Italy would be “their last trip together.” Later in the film, Alex appears frustrated with Poppy and the fact that she hadn’t told him about her feelings, which makes absolutely no sense. He claims he was “waiting for her” during the two years they didn’t speak after the Italy trip, even though he didn’t even inform her when his engagement broke off. The script does nothing to build up the emotion of where he is coming from. In the novel, the interiority of the characters allowed this moment to have more nuance, but on screen, it felt abrupt and underdeveloped. 

Despite having to slog through clunky and choppy dialogue to get there, the two characters do have more steamy moments in the film. But the intimacy between them feels awkward and stilted. Bader looks almost uncomfortable in these scenes, while Blyth attempts to carry the chemistry for both of them, causing his movements to appear overdone. 

These scenes mainly occur while they are in Barcelona to attend Alex’s brother’s wedding.  For a movie centered on travel, the sense of place is badly developed everywhere except New Orleans. The locations feel generic and pulled from a cookie cutter magazine spread that would be titled ‘sunny vacation spot’ or ‘every villa in Italy or Spain’ because yes, the two countries are practically interchangeable in the set design of this film. 

It is in one of these nonspecific and disturbingly bromide venues that the inevitable third-act breakup occurs: Alex questions Poppy in the middle of the dance floor at his brother’s wedding about what is “next” for their relationship. When she says they can talk about it later, he callously asks her if he is simply a “vacation” to her rather than something real. Then, he declares — without much more dialogue between them — that their relationship won’t work. He leaves her on the dance floor to return to the U.S. alone. 

This scene is an example of the biggest issue of the film: Alex’s character lacks the depth needed for a convincing romantic lead, and he doesn’t change nearly as much as Poppy. 

At the beginning, he felt like a comedically straightlaced 20-year-old boy, but that attitude does not transfer well as his character ages. He reads as overly harsh, unyielding, and unwilling to compromise with Poppy on what their relationship could be in day to day life. Poppy’s bubbly and carefree personality doesn’t have much discernible effect on his character in the long run. It is she who has to make the majority of the changes within herself that allow them to be together. She ends the film a more grounded person, but in a way that is reductive and diminishes her personal goals. 

She is the one who quits her job at a travel magazine and flies back to the hometown she has long hated to track Alex down. Literally. Poppy ends up running after him through the suburban streets of Ohio, since he can’t hear her calling his name due to his ridiculous noise canceling headphones. It was obviously meant to be an amusing take on a chase scene as a lead-up to a love confession, but appeared pathetic on Poppy’s part. She says to Alex she would “give up anything” to be with him. This ends up being true, as we never see Poppy get another job or pursue a creative project in writing. 

Poppy also says to Alex that “Wherever you are in the world, that’s where I belong,” which was first used word for word in the same ending monologue in the better film, “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018), to resolve the third act breakup in both films. Whether this was intentional or not is unknown, but that identical line of dialogue at such a crucial moment will definitely be noticed by hardcore rom-com fans. 

It was a missed opportunity, to say the least, that Poppy didn’t end up writing the novel “People We Meet on Vacation” itself about her and Alex’s story, and having it exist in-universe. She appears to be writing something in the ending scene, but the film never specifies what or for what reason. It does take contrived pains to tell viewers that Alex does, in fact, have a job  teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, since he and Poppy live together in New York City at this point. 

With that, Poppy and Alex are together, and traveling was the problem all along. Or traveling without being in a committed relationship, that is. In the end, the film posits that Alex, who had wanted to stay in his hometown from the get go, was  right all along. 

As someone who has made every effort to leave their small hometown and travel, the movie feels accusatory, claiming that a love of globe-trotting is indicative of wanting to run away from a larger issue. It takes on a ‘no place like home’ mentality in the worst way, making Poppy give it all up so Alex would allow their relationship to continue. 

Two stars: One is for Molly Shannon and the other is for Alan Ruck. Their five minutes on screen were the best parts of this film.