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This story contains spoilers for Voicemails for Isabelle! You can stream the movie now with a Netflix subscription.
I was pretty sure Voicemails for Isabelle would be an all-timer when it came to Netflix rom-coms. I’m proud to admit I was right. This entry on the 2026 movie schedule is wonderful. However, I was also pretty sure Wes (Nick Robinson), the main love interest, wouldn’t be able to recover the secret he kept from Jill (Zoey Deutch) about the voicemails. However, he totally did, and I gotta give a shoutout to this film for overcoming the incredibly uncomfy secret he kept from her for a very long time.
When I Realized Wes Was Going To Keep This Secret, I Didn’t Think He Could Redeem Himself
While I thought Nick Robinson’s Wes was kind, funny, smart and utterly charming, I could not get past this secret he chose to keep. For a very long time, he did not tell Jill he’d been listening to all the messages she was leaving for her dead sister, and that's a crazy piece of info to keep a secret when you're trying to build a relationship.
Obviously, I can understand that there really is no best time to admit something like that. However, he also needed to get over that immediately. In a perfect world, he would have told Jill he heard the voicemails the second he met her. But he didn’t. In fact, he kept not doing it, and that drove me so crazy that I started to believe there was no world in which he could end up with her.
He did end up with her, though, and the way the movie got me back on Wes’s side and proved that he was worthy of Jill was actually perfection.
However, Wes Actually Handled The Aftermath Of The Voicemails Secret Very Well
Despite my qualms with its conflict, I sincerely think Voicemails for Isabelle could be one of the great rom-coms (and yes, that means it's right up there with Zoey Deutch’s beloved rom-com Set It Up). That's in part because of how Wes feels about this secret and ultimately handles it. In short, it's A+.
For starters, he’s incredibly self-aware and does not like the fact that he hasn’t told Jill about the voicemails. It’s not that he doesn’t want to tell her. He simply can’t figure out the best way to do it. That self-awareness made me like him, despite the secret. So, when Jill eventually found out about the voicemails, I wasn’t just angry with Wes. I also felt very bad for him. Overall, the film made me feel empathy for him and his situation, while also never downplaying how horrible it was that he kept the secret.
Then, when it came to his actual redemption, he aced it. First of all, he gave Jill the space she needed. He didn’t push the situation, and he left her alone. Then, when he found out Jill lost her voicemails, he didn’t intend to use that as an opportunity to get back with her. He simply did what he could to recover the voicemails; he even gave his tech guy a very valuable Magic: The Gathering card.
It’s in doing that that he gets the advice to call her and leave a voicemail. Then, what he says is lovely, sweet, apologetic and very endearing. He told Jill he opened a line so she could leave voicemails to his sister, and he invited her to have New Year’s Eve tacos.
To top it off, he also had a perfect love confession that acknowledged Jill’s love for her sister and his love for Jill. Truly, it was beautiful, and he managed to pull off quite the comeback after keeping a very uncomfortable secret.
Overall, as I watched this rom-com on Netflix’s 2026 schedule, I never felt like Wes was trying to manipulate or use this secret against Jill, and he always knew what he did was wrong. And because of that, he is worthy of forgiveness from the woman he loves and us.
