TL;DR
People We Meet on Vacation, Emily Henry’s first Netflix adaptation, stars Emily Bader and Tom Blyth as lifelong friends whose annual vacation tradition breaks down. Director Brett Haley explores home as a feeling, not a place, earning 3.5/5 for emotional sincerity.
There’s always that nervous moment when a beloved book heads to Netflix. Will they get it right? Will the chemistry translate? Can you actually capture what made readers fall in love with the story in the first place?
People We Meet on Vacation answers those questions with a surprisingly confident yes. This isn’t just the first Emily Henry novel to make it to film—it’s proof that the “beach read” romance genre deserves more credit than it typically gets on screen.
What Makes This Romance Different
The story centers on Poppy and Alex, two friends who couldn’t be more different on paper. She’s the free spirit constantly chasing the next adventure. He’s the routine-loving homebody who color-codes his calendar. But they’ve made it work for nearly a decade through an annual tradition: one week every summer, somewhere new in the world, just the two of them.
Until it all fell apart two years ago.
When Alex’s brother invites them both to his Barcelona wedding, Poppy sees her chance to fix whatever broke between them. She cancels her latest travel writing assignment and shows up ready to confront the elephant that’s been sitting between them since their last disastrous trip together.
Director Brett Haley, who previously brought emotional depth to All The Bright Places and Hearts Beat Loud, understands that the real story here isn’t about will-they-won-t-they. We know they will. The question is whether they can stop running from what’s been obvious to everyone except themselves.
Emily Bader’s Breakout Performance
If you’re not familiar with Emily Bader, you will be after this. Her turn as Poppy is the kind of performance that makes casting directors look like geniuses. She brings this infectious energy that never tips into annoying—no small feat when playing someone whose entire personality revolves around being perpetually in motion.
What makes Bader’s work here so effective is how she reveals the vulnerability underneath all that bounce. Poppy isn’t just restless because she loves adventure. She’s terrified of staying still long enough for people to realize she might not be worth the effort. It’s a fear that’ll hit hard for anyone who spent their late twenties convinced they were running out of time to become whoever they’re supposed to be.
The character embodies something painfully relatable: that feeling of needing to shift into “real adulthood” while having zero clue what that actually looks like. Except unlike most of us, Poppy’s figured out she has a safe place to land when things get overwhelming. She just hasn’t admitted that place is a person named Alex.
The Opposite End of the Spectrum
Tom Blyth’s Alex gets the less flashy role, but he holds his own. While Poppy’s dealing with existential wanderlust, Alex is navigating the equally tricky territory of building a life that feels like a home rather than just a house. He’s got the HVAC system that needs fixing. He’s got the stability. What he doesn’t have is the right person to share it with.
The chemistry between Bader and Blyth carries the film through its structural quirks. The story’s framed as a mystery of sorts—what happened on that trip two years ago that broke them? We’re jumping through their vacation history, piecing together how they got here. But honestly, we probably figure out the answer pretty quickly. That’s okay, though, because watching these two make up dance routines in New Orleans or lose their clothes to the ocean during a Canadian skinny-dipping session is entertaining enough on its own.
The Screenwriting Challenge
Adapting the novel fell to Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo, and they’ve made some smart choices about structure. By filtering most of the story through Poppy’s perspective, we get the unreliable narrator effect that makes her eventual realizations land harder. She’s so busy looking for the next destination that she can’t see what’s right in front of her.
The script leans into the When Harry Met Sally question of whether men and women can truly be friends when attraction’s in the mix. But unlike that classic, People We Meet on Vacation doesn’t feel the need to be particularly clever about the answer. It knows where it’s going and it’s comfortable getting there at its own pace.
Home as More Than a Place
What elevates this above standard rom-com territory is how it explores the concept of home. Not as a geographic location or a piece of real estate, but as a feeling, a person, a place where you can actually be yourself without performing. For Poppy, that’s never been her childhood home in Ohio or her New York apartment. It’s always been wherever Alex is.
That might sound corny on paper, but Haley directs it with enough emotional sincerity that it works. The film captures what an actual vacation feels like—the warm locations, the highs of new experiences, the intimacy of dedicated time with someone you care about, and that cold splash of reality when it’s over. Then comes the anticipation of doing it all again.
Whether that’s intentional design or happy accident, it creates this meta-texture where the film itself becomes the vacation experience it’s depicting.
The January Positioning Question
Here’s something worth noting: this dropped on Netflix in January 2026, a month traditionally reserved for projects the studio isn’t betting the farm on. But People We Meet on Vacation feels too polished, too well-executed for dump-month treatment. Maybe Netflix is evolving its strategy, or maybe they recognized that a travel romance about escaping ordinary life plays better in January than we’d expect.
After all, who isn’t dreaming about vacation plans during the post-holiday slump?
Who This Works For
If you’re a fan of Emily Henry’s novels, this adaptation should satisfy. It captures the core of what makes her writing connect—the emotional honesty wrapped in escapist fantasy, the characters who feel like people you’d actually want to hang out with, the romance that doesn’t rely on manufactured conflict.
For rom-com enthusiasts more broadly, this sits comfortably alongside films like Up in the Air and obviously When Harry Met Sally. It’s not trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s just making a really solid, well-crafted version of something we already know works.
The 3.5 out of 5 rating feels right. It’s above average, occasionally even great, without quite reaching masterpiece territory. But in a genre crowded with forgettable streaming content, “above average” is actually pretty damn good.
The Bigger Picture for Emily Henry Adaptations
This marks the first Emily Henry novel to hit screens, but it won’t be the last. Several of her other books are optioned for future productions, and if they’re handled with this level of care, readers have reason to be optimistic. People We Meet on Vacation proves her dialogue, her character dynamics, and her understanding of modern romance can survive the transition from page to screen.
The film understands something crucial: these stories aren’t just about finding love. They’re about finding the version of yourself that can actually accept it when it shows up. For Poppy, that means stopping long enough to recognize home when she’s already there. For viewers, it means getting a rom-com that respects both the romance and the intelligence of its audience.
Not bad for a beach read adaptation.
Check out It’s Netflix Nerd for our latest reviews, ending explanations, and recommendations.