Review of Voicemails for Isabelle, directed by Leah McKendrick

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.

Now, I’ll have to admit this: I’m usually not into romance movies and don’t often seek them out. There’s something about romance movies where I typically find them poorly written. That’s not a catch-all parameter though of what I think—there are genuinely good movies with solid writing out there in the world. They’re just rare.

But when I’m in the mood, I’m in the mood. I also tend to go off of my vibes lately when it comes to what I want to watch, so when I saw this movie had been released on Netflix, I decided to just press play and see what it was about.

Let’s get into the review!

After her sister Isabelle unexpectedly passes away, Jill continues calling her phone and doesn’t realize someone else has that number now.

Our main character in this movie is Jill, who left her hometown of Austin in order to pursue her dream of being a baker in San Francisco. She works under a chef who really doesn’t care for her, and is abusive and controlling all around, making it difficult to get through on the day to day. In order to cope with her situation, and stay in touch with her sister, Jill calls her over the phone as much as she can.

Her sister, Isabelle, lives with cystic fibrosis and can’t have a normal life. One day Isabelle unexpectedly passes away, much to Jill’s horror, and after the fact she continues calling her phone and leaving voicemails about her day and daily frustrations. Little does she know that Wes, a real estate agent, recently acquired the number and listens to all of the voicemails.

He’s become deeply invested in what’s going on in Jill’s life, including her dates. She’s gone out with her coworker and a dating podcaster, but both of those aren’t going too well. Wes also realizes that Isabelle is dead after a while, even though his friends are telling him that he should stop listening to the voicemails, maybe block Jill, and move on with his life.

After Tyler, the podcaster, ghosts her, Jill ends up going to one of his live podcasting records and chewing him out in front of everyone. Wes convinces his boss to fly him out to San Francisco for work and goes to the event, realizing Jill is there. He follows her when she storms out angrily.

He finds Jill at a spot overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, then they have their first real conversation. They then go out for tacos after Wes asks her if she wants to come with him. The night goes so well that Jill says she’ll show him around San Francisco, and they go on a bus tour together.

It’s on the bus that Jill admits to him that she really doesn’t know about being a baker, then their tour guide quits. Wes ends up getting up and giving the tour in a comedic manner, but that gets him kicked off the bus. She kisses him after the fact, then makes him dinner. It’s then she tells him about how she ended up cooking originally to make meals for her sister while they were at home.

Wes debates whether he should confess to Jill or not about the voicemails, but doesn’t. He brings her to his friends’ wedding in town. Jill decides to leave a voicemail for Isabelle, but realizes that Wes received the call, angering her. She leaves him behind, but that night loses the voicemails after her phone goes through an update. At work her coworker is promoted despite making a major mistakes and she walks out.

Her parents come into town and give Isabelle’s college fund to Jill, who then opens a dessert taco truck. He coworker joins the operation, while Wes keeps tabs on her. He gets his hacker coworker to try and get the voicemails back, while on New Year’s he calls Jill and tells her he paid for the old number through the year for her.

He also invites her to meet him when in town. She comes back to visit her parents and finds out the voicemails are on her phone, then Wes goes to the restaurant and finds her there. They become a couple. Wes calls Isabelle’s number some time later to ask for her permission to move in together, while Jill calls to tell Isabelle that she thinks everything will be fine.

The movie ends with Wes and Jill dancing to “Dancing On My Own” together.

Overall Thoughts

Although I think this movie was poorly written in some ways and very cliche, it definitely has a lot of heart to it. The characters kind of just exist to propel the main characters together, which disappointed me because I wanted to learn about the other people in their lives, but I found the romance element of this movie to work.

I think it does because of the acting and the dialogue. It’s not too corny and cheap, even though it feels like something I’ve seen a thousand times before in movies, television, and books. I enjoyed watching this movie because of it, even though I don’t think I’d really return to it in the near future.

I say watch this one if you’re interested and want something cute to watch on a weekday night! It’s low effort and definitely something you don’t have to think too hard about, which is good for a work night.

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