Netflix had a tremendous year last, specifically when it comes to original movies. They delivered the best movie of 2025 with “Train Dreams”. But right behind it were several other outstanding features including three that also made my Top 10, “Nouvelle Vague”, “Frankenstein”, and “Jay Kelly”. Not to mention Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” and “Wake Up Dead Man”, the latest and best Knives Out film so far.

Netflix kicks off 2026 with a romantic comedy that certainly doesn’t reach the heights of the above movies. But for most of its running time, “People We Meet on Vacation” is an unexpected delight. Much of its success hinges on the sparkling chemistry of its two stars, Emily Bader and Tom Blyth. It’s only later, when the script slips into that all too familiar romcom formula, that the movie starts to come unglued.

“People We Meet on Vacation” is based on Emily Henry’s 2021 novel of the same name. This light and breezy adaptation is directed by Brett Haley who’s working from a script by Yulin Kuang, Amos Vernon, and Nunzio Randazzo. The film stars Bader as Poppy, a free-spirited New York City travel writer. Nine years earlier, Poppy met the tightly wound Alex (Blyth) met while sharing a ride from their college in Boston to their home in Lynnfield, Ohio. Despite being polar opposites, Poppy and Alex become unexpected best friends.

For nearly a decade the (ahem) strictly platonic friends have taken summer vacations together. A series of flashbacks take us back to several of their trips – camping in Canada, partying in New Orleans, and an especially relationship-changing summer in Tuscany. But something happened leading Poppy and Alex to have a falling-out. They haven’t spoken in two years, but they’re given a chance to reconnect after Alex’s brother David (Miles Heizer) invites Poppy to his wedding in Barcelona.

For the majority of its 118 minutes, Haley manages to keep things surprisingly fresh. There is never a time when we don’t know where things are going or how it’s going to end. But the road to that point is littered with good laughs while maintaining a believable romantic spark. Alan Ruck and Molly Shannon get one lone yet hysterical scene as Poppy’s parents. But the heavy lifting is done by Bader and Blyth who win us over and earn our affection.

Yet along with its predictability, “People We Meet on Vacation” also leans on a few easy to recognize romcom tropes that come off as a little lazy. But its biggest issue comes in the final act where the story completely gives way to the Hallmark formula. It’s as if the filmmakers lost faith in everything that had worked so well. Still, you could do a lot worse than “People We Meet on Vacation” – a romantic comedy that depends on good characters, strong chemistry, and crisp dialogue right up until it doesn’t.