Netflixs new rom-com is surprisingly good…
film review
VOICEMAILS FOR ISABELLE
Running time: 118 minutes. Rated TV-14 (inappropriate content, alcohol use, suggestive jokes, frequent foul language and some comedic violence). On Netflix.
Netflix is giving me rom-com whiplash.
On June 5, Jennifer Lopez starred in an execrable one for the streamer called “Office Romance” — I’m wondering what that’s about! — which embarrassingly failed to convey Jenny from the Aughts’ Hollywood heyday back to life.
And then just two weeks later arrived the infinitely better “Voicemails for Isabelle,” a candy and humorous if stalkerish film that nostalgically harks back to the 2010s and those love-centric movies that often got here with a heaping scoop of heartache.
Watching Netflix’s tries has been like plucking flower petals: I like them, I like them not, I like them, I like them not.
This one, I like.
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Given the rawly emotional tone of “Isabelle,” you’d assume it was based on a well-liked young-adult novel. Yet it’s neither about teenagers nor tailored from a e book. Writer-director Leah McKendrick’s characters are in their twenties and the plot is authentic. Of course, her film is also keenly conscious that no romance movie is ever absolutely authentic.
“You’re so dramatic,” says Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), who suffers from cystic fibrosis, to her anxious sister Jill when her health deteriorates. “This is not ‘A Walk to Remember’.”
Responds Jill (Zoey Deutch): “But is it ‘A Fault in Our Stars’?”
The pair are inseparable best mates and we watch them cutely grow up together from 2010 to 2026 — jamming out to “Dancing On My Own” by Robyn, exhibiting playground bullies who’s boss and beginning unintended kitchen fires.
Isabelle (Ciara Bravo) dies in the first few minutes of the film. DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX ©2026
As Isabelle’s worsening condition retains her at home, Jill is in a position to unfold her wings, go to promenade and meet boys. Still, the sisters make a behavior of ringing each other continuously, so Isabelle can live vicariously through Jill’s cellphone.
When she all of the sudden dies, a despondent Jill retains leaving diary-like, often hilarious cellphone messages for her — unable to cope with the loss.
Only her late sister’s quantity has, unbeknownst to Jill, been reassigned — to a stud!
Wes (Nick Robinson) meets Jill (Zoey Deutch) in an uncommon means — through voicemails that weren’t meant for him. DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX ©2026
That’s Wes (Nick Robinson), an Austin, Texas, businessman who raptly listens to her voicemails like they’re episodes of his favourite cleaning soap opera. He turns into so enamored with Jill that he takes a work journey to San Francisco, where she works in the pastry store of a jackass “Top Chef” contestant (Nick Offerman), and seeks her out. He makes use of his information of Jill to flirt. That scheme works and they date.
The drama is that smitten Wes, while effectively meant, neglects to point out to his new lady that he’s been devouring her personal recordings for weeks as if they have been a podcast.
That’s, erm, a little bizarre. And “Voicemails for Isabelle” shares a bit in common with the Police music “Every Breath You Take.” It feels like an easy-listening hit until you pay close consideration to the serial-killer lyrics.
Jill works miserably as a baker for a jerk. DIYAH PERA/NETFLIX ©2026
You’ll get over that. Because McKendrick is very cautious with the tone of her film, and impressively circumnavigates creep territory. As the problems and Wes’ guilt pile up, the movie efficiently argues that he fell for the most weak and sincere model of Jill. So what if he did it through textbook invasion of privateness?
This shrewd director is aware of two truths: Viewers will always give scorching people the benefit of the doubt, and the core viewers for this flick goals that some man who owns a home with a pool will grow to be so obsessively infatuated with them, too.
McKendrick is also fortunate to have Deutch, an energetic, idiosyncratic and underrated actress who everyone is finally beginning to catch onto. She makes the overly campy bakery scenes, in which Offerman goes full Gordon Ramsay and forces his workers to compete with each other, funnier than they deserve to be.
Deutch’s power and charisma make first rate scenes funnier. ALLYSON RIGGS/NETFLIX © 2026
And Deutch’s natural pep, and plausible anguish, pairs effectively with Robinson’s relaxed coolness, nearly like a touring comedy act. They have a sparky chemistry, which is another cause we select to forgive Wes’ lies that in real life would make a juicy episode of “Maury.”
The ending scene, which I’m sure many of one can find predictable but I didn’t, is an immensely satisfying button on a film made for a night time of ugly crying and binge-eating baked items.
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