‘People We Meet On Vacation’ Review – Charming Leads Carry This Friends-To-Lovers Romantic Comedy

Who doesn’t dream of traveling to lush and expansive destinations with their friends and family? On vacation, you can be anyone you want to be. Many people have reinvented themselves while walking along the streets of New York or galivanting around Paris. The charming idea of travel serving as both a catalyst and a reflection within one’s own life is one of the many themes at the heart of Netflix’s adaptation of author Emily Henry’s romantic comedy novel, People We Meet On Vacation.

Poppy (Emily Bader) is a quirky, free-spirited travel writer who refuses to stay rooted anywhere for long. The empty fridge in her sleek New York apartment and the ever-growing pile of unopened mail don’t feel like red flags so much as badges of honor, proof of her incurable wanderlust. The one thing she can’t outrun, however, is the absence of Alex (Tom Blyth), her former best friend whom she hasn’t spoken to in years. When Alex’s brother, David (Miles Heizer), invites her to his destination wedding in Barcelona, Poppy takes it as a sign. She goes hoping to reconnect, to understand what went wrong, and maybe, just maybe, put their friendship back together. From there, the film moves fluidly back and forth through time, showing how Poppy and Alex first found each other and how they slowly drifted apart.

People We Meet On Vacation works largely because of its two leads. Bader and Blyth have an easy, playful chemistry that carries the film even when the story itself falters. Bader takes the well-worn trope of the quirky, free-spirited girl and makes it feel warm and endearing rather than exhausting. Poppy is sweet, vulnerable, and loyal to a fault, a character you can’t help but root for, and Bader embodies that effortlessly. Blyth’s Alex, meanwhile, is stoic and uptight, serving as the perfect foil to Poppy’s wild-child energy. It’s a familiar archetype for male romantic leads, but Blyth brings enough sincerity and warmth to make Alex feel genuine and deeply likable. Like Poppy, he’s loyal to a fault, and the film benefits from that emotional symmetry.

Another strength of the film lies in how it defines its central characters. While Poppy craves adventure and constant movement, Alex enjoys travel but ultimately longs for stability and family. These differences are revealed subtly through dialogue and backstory rather than heavy-handed exposition. Alex lost his mother at a young age, and with a father who worked constantly, he was largely raised by his grandmother. That instability shaped him, making the idea of home and routine deeply important in his adult life. Unlike Poppy, he appreciates the small Ohio town they both come from, seeing it as a place of comfort and simplicity. For Poppy, that same town feels like a trap she barely escaped. The film smartly uses these contrasts to let the characters act as emotional foils to one another.

At its core, the story is built on the familiar friends-to-lovers trope. While it doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel or subvert expectations, the slow-burn buildup to Poppy and Alex finally confronting their feelings is handled well. Flirty glances, playful banter, and a shared desire to push each other toward better versions of themselves create a believable emotional arc. Condensing a nearly 400-page novel into a two-hour film was never going to be easy, and viewers can sense where additional scenes might have deepened certain emotional beats. Still, the film largely succeeds in making the transition from friends to lovers feel earned. It’s easy to imagine this story getting a limited-series remake years down the line, one that would give the source material more room to breathe.

Alan Ruck and Molly Shannon appear briefly as Poppy’s parents, Jimmy and Wanda, providing warmth, humor, and the kind of parental insight that sees the romance coming long before the leads do. Sarah Catherine Hook also appears as Alex’s longtime on-again, off-again girlfriend, Sarah. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t quite know what to do with her. Viewers may find themselves wishing Sarah had been given more screen time, if only because it would make sense for her to be more concerned about her boyfriend traveling the world with another woman. While there are moments of tension between her and Poppy, the film never fully explores them.

Ultimately, People We Meet On Vacation is a charming romantic comedy about the winding paths that lead us to the people we’re meant to find. Vader and Blyth’s natural charm and easy chemistry keep the film engaging from start to finish, even when the narrative feels a bit rushed.

People We Meet On Vacation is now streaming on Netflix.