In a big win for book fans, this book-to-film adaptation is pulling huge viewing numbers on Netflix, with over 33M views in just the week since it started streaming; it’s now the #1 movie on the entire platform. And, despite some criticism that it differs too much from the book, the will-they, won’t-they nature of the story seems to have drawn people in and kept them hooked.
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Based on the 2021 best-selling novel by Emily Henry, People We Meet on Vacation is a fun, romantic romp that centers around free-spirited Poppy (Emily Bader) and her straight-laced, long-distance bestie, Alex (Tom Blyth). The pair maintain their years-long, opposites-attract friendship via their yearly summer vacations. As time goes on, the two begin to wonder if they really are just friends. And while the romance is the main feature, author Emily Henry told Tudum it was important viewers saw the pair as “true, platonic, best friends who love each other, but not in a romantic or sexual or sensual way to begin with.”
What Do Viewers Love So Much About the Film?
If People We Meet on Vacation feels familiar, it’s because Henry was inspired by one of the most iconic rom-coms of all time. While she did base the travels in the book on her own experiences, she said it was When Harry Met Sally that really brought the idea to life for her. “I wanted to try to do sort of a gender-flipped version of that in which the female lead would be the Harry character. Then our Sally character is the male lead, a true romantic. For this book, I was trying to figure out a good place for these two characters to fall in love. And it came to me that it shouldn’t just be one place; it should be a bunch of different places. So I took a lot of my favorite vacations, and I pulled details from those, and I wrote this story of a vacation romance that spans 12 years.”
It’s brought in mostly positive reviews from fans and critics alike, who say that it’s comfortable and a bit formulaic, but that it works for those reasons—especially for viewers who loved the book. “Make no mistake: this is a rom-com assembled from familiar parts—rain-soaked kisses, pop-song needle drops, and grand declarations abound. Yet, like a comforting holiday retreat, the film’s predictability is part of its appeal,” says Archika Khurana of The India Times.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools.
