As someone who enjoys watching movies for the escapism, I was greatly looking forward to watching “The People We Meet on Vacation” upon its Netflix release this month. As I sat down with my roommate to watch the film, we were eager to enjoy a classic rom-com with the ever-dashing Tom Blyth. The reason I only watched this movie with my roommate, the singular noun, is because my other roommates were saving the movie till they finished reading the book series—suspending their excitement for the sake of a greater payoff in the future, with the expectation that the movie would reach the same widely acclaimed status as the book. Little do they know they should be prepared for a great disappointment.
Without going through the various scenes in chronological order and critiquing the overall story arc, because, frankly, I don’t want to watch this movie a second time, let me explain my thoughts on this film through my patent-pending list of “good rom-com criteria.” One, it must have characters we can invest in emotionally. This doesn’t mean the characters need to be perfectly good or moral; in fact, the opposite is even more heart-stirring, but they do need qualities that are either relatable enough to project yourself upon the character or alluring enough to wish they existed in your reality. Despite our best efforts, my roommate and I both agreed that we were entirely aloof from these characters and their happily ever after felt devoid of any real meaning (that might have been a bit of an overexaggeration, but you get the idea). Poppy, in both the flashbacks and the present, is nothing short of tactless, superficial and annoying. There are definitely some good qualities about her, like her perpetual optimism and her adventurous spirit that breaks Alex out of his shell; however, they are not enough to lift her character out of the gutter. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t using her as my entry point into the story. Alex is far less egregiously exhausting; however, he is no gem either. From the beginning of the film till their first trip to the campsite, his stiff and unfeeling demeanor makes you detest him as a character—it is honestly the only part of the movie where I liked and felt bad for Poppy for having to deal with such a wet rag. As the movie continues and Alex loosens up and stops feeling the need to say or give the energy of “I have a girlfriend” every time he enters an interaction with a woman, he becomes bearable to watch. The scene where he decides to go skinny dipping, then finds his clothes missing, quite literally shares his vulnerable side and makes you appreciate the character, in more ways than one. I used the term bearable because his choice to propose to a woman he is clearly not interested in anymore in Tuscany after his feelings develop for Poppy made me so frustrated that I almost threw the remote at the TV. The audacity of men, even fictional ones, seems to know no bounds. How dare a rom-com, my safe space, shatter the veil and attack me this way … According to a Letterboxed review, this scene and the context come across very differently in the book with Poppy and Alex’s first kiss and the proposal taking place on two separate trips (Croatia and Tuscany) and the buying of the ring as more of an impulse purchase of something he knew Poppy would like then making a mistake, rather than a calculated act of pure male fragility.
Moving on to criterion number two: fun settings and visual interest. I was initially drawn to this title because I am a sucker for romance travel movies. Think “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” “My Life in Ruins or Letters to Juliet” (also DDLJ for any readers who are fans of Bollywood). While I did enjoy the different settings in this movie, from fun lakeside camp shenanigans to the bustling streets of New Orleans and the beautiful chateau in Tuscany, I didn’t feel the movie allowed its audience to actually enjoy the view. We seemed to spend more time panning the camera as we followed Poppy through various airports than taking in any of the actually beautiful settings in the film. They somehow even managed to spoil the wedding in Spain setting by only showing us a few seconds of a rooftop pool before sequestering us in a poorly designed and decrepit hotel room and an over-adorned wedding venue where the rose arch completely obscured the horizon. As mentioned in the Letterboxd review from above, there were also locations cut out of the film, which, although not surprising considering the run time, felt antithetical to the movie’s big draw of “vacationing.”
Onto the most important quality: The narrative must be clear, easy enough to follow without being boring and, most importantly, come to a satisfying conclusion. This film meets very little of this criteria, which honestly is usually a “gimme” for a rom-com. The main problems with the narrative arc in this film are that they over-stuffed the plot with rom-com tropes (ex: kissing in the rain, running after someone who can’t hear you calling to them, dancing together, pretending to be together when you aren’t, even if you harbor feelings for each other, etc.) and the chronological order of the scenes. The filmmakers spend more time trying to give the romance fans all the recognizable tropes they possibly can than actually building up the characters—it feels like you are watching two stick figures physically stage these classic situations without any emotional appeal to the point of second hand embarrassment. Not to mention, there is a jump cut every five to 10 minutes, and the time skips are inconsistent, with some being a year while others are a handful of years. The only moment within the narrative where I enjoyed their use of a trope was the big dance scene in New Orleans; however, you still have to look past the costuming and the song that the movie clearly wants you to love and associate with the film, but really isn’t very good … when art reflects art, I suppose … Take the rain scene, for example. The window is tarped because of some kind of construction, which is why, due to the broken AC, the characters are left to sweat in the heat instead of opening a window. In order to achieve the kissing in the rain scene, instead of opening the window, Poppy completely ignores the fact that she has no idea the degree of structural integrity the balcony has before her, pushes past the tarp and pulls Alex outside to kiss in the rain. It is literally forced into the narrative by ignoring everything we established about the space to achieve not only the rain, since it is supposed to be sweltering, but also has access to the outdoors. We can’t even see the European cityscape behind them because they are quite literally surrounded by construction tarps and scaffolding. Why would this be the choice here? There is seemingly no rational explanation for this to occur. Another pointless trope was the dress reveal scene when Poppy arrives at the rehearsal dinner. While you may disagree with me about my strong distaste for the vile green color of her dress, consider the plain and simple fact that her dress is just not that captivating. There is nothing exciting about her entrance; she just walks in, no staircase, nothing, and there is nothing special about her dress other than the deplorable color. Even Alex’s expression of shock is hard to accept; she really just walked in the room and made eye contact with him. When I found out that this dress and color were made specifically for this movie with the intention of imitating the famous yellow dress scene from “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” I was speechless. This fact also solidified my theory that the people who made this movie are fans of rom-coms; that is indisputable, they just don’t know how to actually make one. The result is this crude imitation of all the right pieces in all the wrong places.
To that end, it has come to my attention that many people are huge fans of the book from which this film was adapted. So, in an effort to save my fellow romance enthusiasts the heartbreak, I have decided to end this review with my solution to fix this hot mess of a film: they should release it in reverse order. Yes, that’s right, the film would have been ten times better if the order of scenes were reversed. This means that we would start with the couple together and see how they got to this point, rather than trying to hop through random snippets of memories before eventually reaching the end and asking ourselves what they really see in each other. If you have already seen the movie, I hope you can see what I mean. Imagine this: the movie begins with the couple happily together dancing at a wedding. We see them have a fight about how their priorities in life and their level of commitment to their relationship are not aligned. The two grooms get married. Then we jump to the “dress reveal scene” where we see he still has strong feelings for her even though they are not right for each other on paper. Then we see how, shortly before this, he proposed to the wrong person in Tuscany, providing context for the state of their relationship. We jump A BIT between present Poppy’s dreary life and the various trips they went on together IN ORDER ONE-YEAR-AFTER-THE-OTHER. After we see the camping trip, we cut to a brief clip of the present with Alex at his new house and Poppy alone in her apartment, talking on the phone. Then we see the scene where they first meet as carpooling buddies, with her staggering up to the car, juxtaposed with inserted clips of her from the big scene with her running after him, jogging. When she finishes running and catches up to him on the street, the film finally cuts to her reaching the car and Poppy and Alex’s first conversation of “Hi are you Alex” blah blah blah “you are late” blah blah blah “Let’s get going.” Trunk closes, screen cuts to black, movie ends.
Did you get chills? I got chills. If anyone reading this has a connection to any producer or Netflix executive that you would like to share this idea with and get us in contact, feel free. Honestly, maybe I’ll shove this edition of the Hoot in the mail with the address of a Netflix PO box. This also makes me wonder how many movies may have been better if they were reversed … perhaps my next Hoot article. Hopefully, the next Netflix rom-com is a little better … one can hope, right?
