Review of People We Meet on Vacation, directed by Brett Haley

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I actually watched People We Meet on Vacation when it first came out on Netflix. I never really had an interest in reading the book, nor any of Emily Henry’s book, but I saw Tom Blyth was in it and decided that I might as well give it a chance.

That’s when I ended up just pressing play and watching the movie. I started falling asleep about ¼ of the way in because I was so tired from the work day, but that’s not the movie’s fault entirely!

Let’s get into the review. I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

Two former best friends find themselves at crossroads as adults—but now there might be some romance involved.

Our main character in this movie is Poppy, who lives in New York City and has the quite elusive career of “travel writer.” Although this is the perfect setup for another version of Sex and the City, she’s not too happy with her life right now. It’s when her friend David, who’s getting married in Barcelona, reminds her of his wedding, she remembers his brother Alex.

Alex and Poppy go way back. Turns out they met in college and during friends road tripping back to their shared hometown in Ohio, they became good friends. They even share a hotel room, despite Alex having a girlfriend. As time passes, they go on a hiking trip together, where they decide to commit on going on vacations together.

In the present moment, Poppy calls Alex and tells him that she’s going to go to Barcelona on a work trip and attend the wedding. The moment hits in Barcelona and they reunite, and we learn that six years prior they pretended to be on a honeymoon in New Orleans. When Poppy’s room’s aircon goes out, he tries to fix it and has a back problem.

He stays with her and they talk about how instead of going to Norway one time, Alex came to New York and helped Poppy out when she was sick. When he goes later to invite her to the rehearsal dinner, he realizes that she lied about the work trip.

She then tells him she missed him as her best friend and he tells her the same thing back. She wants to go back to the way things were before they went to Italy together, but Alex refuses. Turns out two years before now, they went to Tuscany with their significant others, and when Poppy thought she was pregnant, Alex almost kissed her.

Poppy then said she didn’t mean to almost kiss him back and he leaves. The next morning, he proposes to his girlfriend, and when Poppy tells him that she thinks he’s not acting in accordance to what he actually wants, he cuts off their trips together.

Alex, in the present moment, then admits that he ended his relationship with Sarah because of Poppy. They have sex and get together officially, although there are some hiccups when she says she wants to figure out their relationship and life.

Poppy heads home and runs into Sarah, who tells her that she didn’t know what she wanted when Alex and her broke up. Poppy then quits her job and travels to Linfield to confront Alex. She then admits to him she wants to be with him. They start a relationship and live together in New York City.

Overall Thoughts

I didn’t know what to expect from this movie, as I never read the book or even looked up the synopsis. I think it was a fine movie overall. The plot itself felt really thin and weak, and I wasn’t invested in the characters. I think I would’ve loved just Poppy’s story without the romance, as her career and dissatisfaction appealed to me in terms of storylines.

I get the sense that if you’re a fan of the book you might enjoy the movie a lot more than I did. I started feeling like the actors were wooden and couldn’t tell if it was just a poor script or acting, but the further we got into it the more I felt the script was awkward.

I say if you’re interested in the movie to give it a chance. I don’t think I was the target audience here, but someone else might love it more than I did! Which is fine, taste is so incredibly subjective.

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