The People We Meet on Vacation is Netflix’s newest romcom, adapting Emily Henry’s book of the same name. Photo: Michele K Short/Netflix.
For the past month, a lot of my book-reader friends have been filling social media with their excitement and love for the film adaptation of The People We Meet On Vacation.
I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t know anything about it. I’m not the demographic of author Emily Henry’s work.
Fortunately for me, I had a quiet night and was in the mood to have my heart broken by a couple of attractive, young actors.
So with the TV remote in hand and my Netflix subscription renewed, I said screw it, let’s give The People We Meet On Vacation a watch.
The People We Meet On Vacation stars Emily Bader and Thomas Blyth as best friends Poppy and Alex.
The pair first meet when carpooling from their college in Boston back to Linfield, Ohio, for their summer break. Poppy is nomadic and enjoys travelling across the world, leading to her ultimately becoming a travel blogger. Meanwhile, Alex is more than happy living in Ohio with his on-again, off-again girlfriend, Sarah.
After their initial road trip from hell, Poppy and Alex form a close friendship and decide to meet every summer for a vacation somewhere different in the world.
Fast forward eight years and Poppy is invited to Alex’s brother’s wedding in Spain. It is here that we learn she and Alex haven’t spoken for nearly two years. So for the rest of the film, through flashbacks, we learn what went down each summer until their eventual separation.
The best part of this entire thing is Emily Bader and Thomas Blyth’s chemistry.
The pair naturally bounce off one another, which is exactly what is required for a romantic comedy with a quirky premise to work.
They’re more than believable when at odds and even stronger when they grow to like each other. Emily Bader particularly gives a girl next door-type performance that makes the entire thing so much fun.
You want to spend time with her even if she is doing something that would get on your nerves. On the other side of the coin, Thomas Blyth’s turn as a stick in the mud slowly learning to let loose really shows why the pair work well.
She gives him the energy to live life, while he teaches her to slow down and enjoy the moment.
On a slightly less positive note, this movie isn’t anything groundbreaking. It fits into the “right person, wrong time” mould of rom-com and while that isn’t a bad thing by any stretch, it does blend with a lot of other straight-to-streaming movies with similar premises.
With all that said, this does deserve its flowers. It’s a lot of fun and for the most part, people who read the book enjoy it as an adaptation.
As far as January releases go, for both cinema and streaming releases, this is one of the better ones in 2026. It’s not reinventing the wheel by any means but it does have a lot of heart.
The People We Meet on Vacation is now streaming on Netflix.
