Brett Haley adapts Emily Henry’s bestselling novel as a classic friends-to-lovers rom-com. Poppy is spontaneous, restless, and happiest when she is going somewhere new. Alex prefers routines, plans, and a much quieter life. Somehow, they still spend one summer vacation together every year. When they reconnect at a wedding in Barcelona after a long period apart, the movie starts filling in their shared history through flashbacks.
The setup is familiar, and that is both the movie’s strength and its biggest limitation. People We Meet on Vacation has no interest in reinventing romantic comedy. It relies on opposites attracting, years of buried feelings, beautiful destinations, and the obvious question of why two people who work so well together take so long to admit it. That puts almost everything on Emily Bader and Tom Blyth. Bader gives Poppy the energy, humor, and slight unpredictability the character needs. Blyth plays Alex with much more restraint. That contrast gives their relationship enough texture to keep the familiar formula from feeling completely artificial.
The structure is less successful. The movie jumps between the present and vacations from different years, which creates the impression of a long shared history but does not always give individual moments enough time to matter. Nearly a decade of friendship has to fit inside a two-hour movie. As a result, some emotional turns feel announced rather than fully earned. This is where the compression of a substantial novel becomes most obvious.
Visually, the travel concept works much better. Barcelona, New Orleans, and the changing locations give the movie color and stop the repeated romantic pattern from becoming too static. The soundtrack, including Taylor Swift, boygenius, and Billie Eilish, also makes the target audience very clear. At the same time, everything is polished, comfortable, and occasionally too smooth. The movie knows exactly who it wants to please and would rather hug that audience than surprise it. That is pleasant, but it also softens the conflicts. There is enough warmth to keep it watchable, but not enough messiness to make the relationship feel dangerous or surprising.
The supporting cast includes Sarah Catherine Hook, Lucien Laviscount, Jameela Jamil, Molly Shannon, and Alan Ruck, but they only get limited room. The focus stays firmly on Poppy and Alex. That is probably the right choice, although it reinforces the feeling that almost everyone outside the central relationship mainly exists to push these two toward the destination we already expect.
People We Meet on Vacation is not a new When Harry Met Sally, and it is not the grand revival of the romantic comedy either. It is too predictable and sometimes too compressed for that. But Bader and Blyth carry it with enough charm, the vacation atmosphere works, and as an easygoing Netflix romance it delivers almost exactly what it promises. Warm, attractive, slightly forgettable, but far from a failure. I’m giving it 6.5 out of 10.