NETFLIX REVIEW: 'People We Meet on Vacation' travels nowhere new

People We Meet On Vacation eerily feels like a Star Cinema or Viva Films production — only it’s American. Packed with clichés and well-worn tropes. So predictable you can even guess the next scene, and even the dialogue.

With When Harry Met Sally as its DNA, the love story also borrows from romcoms of a bygone era, such as Never Been Kissed (the girl is a writer stuck in a rut), the British book-to-movie One Day (where friends meet on the same day each year, tracking how their relationship evolves), and even Up in the Air (a man who lives out of his suitcase; loneliness disguised as independence).

That’s not exactly a bad thing, borrowing from other movies. But this Netflix movie, directed by Brett Haley with three screenwriters adapting Emily Henry’s bestselling novel of the same name, tries too hard — and offers nothing new.

So we follow the platonic-with-secret-feelings-for-each-other beautiful main characters: Poppy (Emily Bader), the extroverted ditzy girl, and Alex (British actor Tom Blyth), the uptight, low-key grumpy guy.

Poppy is probably named after the party-obsessed Poppy from the animated film Trolls, because she’s always Energizer Bunny–high. Except it feels unnatural and ultra-cringey.

It doesn’t help that Bader, with her doe-eyed seriousness, seems more fit for drama. Some actors have a naturally comic look, and Bader doesn’t. She doesn’t register as instinctively comedic. Her expressions don’t naturally telegraph humor, making her feel miscast in overtly goofy moments. Combined with her wince-worthy, aggressively corny lines, it’s hard to find her endearing or charming.

Meanwhile, Blyth — who was superb in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) — seems perpetually scowling. His mouth always sneering. He’s not exactly the quiet, brooding guy you’d swoon for.

We get a little backstory for these supposed opposites: she’s a lass with small-town trauma and now a travel writer for a print magazine that sends her on enviable all-expense-paid trips, yet she carries that loneliness with her. He, meanwhile, is the domesticated, simple small-town dude forced to craft an extroverted alter ego — “Vacation Alex” — every time they go on their agreed-upon once-a-year trip as “besties.”

Despite the pretty, golden-hued sunset palette and a filmic, grainy sheen, nothing rescues this schlocky story. Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe still reigns as the gold standard for the friends-to-lovers trope—and that was seven years ago. Sigh. Only Jameela Jamil, as Poppy’s editor, emerges as the faintest saving grace in an otherwise tawdry affair.

0.5 out of 5 stars

Stream on Netflix