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This article contains spoilers from Voicemails for Isabelle. If you haven't checked it out, you can stream it with a Netflix subscription. See what the critics have said about it, and come back once you've had a watch! 🛑
I'd already heard good things about Voicemails for Isabelle, the new rom-com that arrived on the Netflix movie schedule this past weekend, so my hopes were high. And yet, I wasn't entirely prepared for how emotional this movie would make me. Talk about highs and lows! Leah McKendrick's new movie is as much a sis-com (a genre I've just decided I need more of) as it is a rom-com, and it's as funny as it is moving. Voicemails for Isabelle is also, in my opinion, the exact right direction for romantic comedies today, in the way it defines its main character and what she's going through amidst also falling in love.
A Romantic-Comedy And A Sister-Comedy All Rolled Into One
At this point, it seems almost impossible to work one or more of our favorite rom-com tropes into a new movie without it feeling like we're retreading the same territory we've experienced for decades. In fact, Voicemails for Isabelle even seems to know it's dabbling in You've Got Mail territory with its plot about a man and a woman hitting it off, while she's unaware that he's been listening to the voicemails she's been leaving for her deceased sister, after he inherited Isabelle's old cell phone number. That's really where the comparisons to Nora Ephron's movie begin and end, though.
Voicemails for Isabelle is actually more about Jill's (Zoey Deutch) grief over losing her sister Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), than it is about Wes (Nick Robinson) trying to win Jill's heart after falling for her. I have sisters, and I don't know why I'd be without those relationships in my life, so it was extremely easy for me to connect with Jill on an emotional level. I'm fortunate enough not to be able to relate directly to Jill's loss here, but this part of her story wrecked me nonetheless.
Isabelle's death wasn't the beginning and end of my tears for this movie. The scene where Taylor Swift's "Marjorie" -- a song that encapsulates what it feels like to grieve a lost family member -- starts playing is one of the points where I lost it. And I was a happy-tears mess at the end of the movie when, while she's leaving her final voicemail to her sister (a sign of closure for Jill as she moves forward with her life, her relationship with Wes, and her successful food truck business), Isabelle's favorite song begins to play. This seeming sign that all is well is exactly the kind of thing I'd be looking for from my sisters (or they'd be looking for from me). It was beautiful and lovely and just the perfect way to close out the movie.
This Movie Is FUNNY
I did say I was a laughing, crying mess, though, right? Man, this movie was a roller coaster. One minute I'm crying over what Jill is going through, and the next, I'm laughing at some of the hilarious things the characters are saying, or cringe-laughing at the nightmare dating scenarios Jill is dealing with. Deutch and Robinson's humor and chemistry go a long way to lighten the tone when things feel heavy. Nick Offerman as the egotistical Chef Bastien and Jill's coworker Arthur (Lukas Gage) also provide some excellent comic relief in being their own versions of the absolute worst, as well as providing demonstrations of the garbage Jill is dealing with in her professional life as an aspiring chef.
Voicemails for Isabelle channels some of the things I love from some of the best romantic comedies ever made, while also feeling modern and fresh, particularly in the way it depicts Deutch's character. I think what I loved most about it is how much of a celebration it is for love between sisters, and Jill's growth emotionally and professionally, as it was about her budding romance with Wes.
In the end, a kiss isn't going to heal Jill's grief, and Wes is never going to replace what she had with her sister, but he seems to understand that relationship better than most, and that's valuable in its own way. He's also aware that, as he put it, she doesn't need him, but he sure as hell needs her, and I love that he included that line when professing his love.
I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, I even swooned a bit. What about you? Did you love Voicemails for Isabelle as much as I did?
