Netflix is attempting to bring back the classic romcom, first with Office Romance, and this week launching Voicemails For Isabelle. This is a genre that was slowly phased out in the '90s to the early '00s, yet an audience still remains - the people yearn for a return to vapid, simple romcoms now more than ever. Netflix seems to be recognising this and is seemingly leading the charge, along with Universal's You, Me, & Tuscany. However, something feels off about Voicemails For Isabelle.
Right from the trailers, this movie's concept feels somewhat predatory, and once you watch it, you realise that's for two reasons. First, and the least consequential, is the fact that Wes actually listens to these voicemails. It makes sense as to why he may not tell Jill where her voicemails are going - it's a vital part of her healing process that would be interrupted and potentially ruined - but his actually listening to them is incredibly invasive. Wes is peering into possibly the most personal part of Jill's life, with her having absolutely no knowledge.
The real reason why this comes off as incredibly predatory is how Wes uses these voicemails to romantically manipulate Jill. From these voicemails alone, Wes finds and stalks her Instagram, finds out what city she lives in, and where she fantasises about meeting the love of her life. He then flies across the country and attempts to act out that exact scenario in an attempt to make her believe it's "meant to be".
You may be sitting here thinking this isn't really that big of a deal because the movie doesn't condone this behaviour, when Jill finds out, she immediately leaves Wes. However, I think this movie doesn't deal with this behaviour as severely as it should have. While yes, Jill does acknowledge how creepy Wes' behaviour is, which is what I was waiting for the most, as it confirms that the movie itself doesn't hold Wes' morals, this shunning by Jill only lasts about five minutes.
After Jill leaves Wes, she also leaves her job and starts her own food truck. This seems to have been her true dream and passion the entire time, as she is the happiest she's been throughout the entire movie, improving it so much. When we stopped focusing on Wes and instead pivoted towards Jill's personal development and happiness, this became a much more enjoyable watch.
This enjoyment only lasted a short time, however, as we soon cut back to Wes, now wallowing in his own self-pity about what he's done to Jill. What they're attempting with this scene is to make us feel bad for Wes, but I really don't. This is a man who's been unapologetically predatory and creepy from the start and is only remorseful because it came to light. Why would I feel bad for him now?
I was worried at this point that the movie would end with Wes being hailed as this hopeless romantic who always had the best intentions, as many romcoms seem to do; he'd apologise, profess his true feelings, and Jill would forgive everything and run into his arms. At first, it seemed as if this wouldn't happen due to Jill being in a great place in her life, until she suddenly started to miss him out of the blue. No part of me thinks this is how the movie should have ended. Wes never should have had his 'redemption' that he never deserved, and Jill should've ended up with somebody who didn't try to manufacture their meeting to falsely frame himself as her true love.
Anyway, now that I've covered Wes' predatory behaviour and why this movie feels strange to me, let's move on. First off, as a romcom, this is perfectly acceptable. It hits all the right notes and ultimately leaves the audience with some satisfaction, which is all it's made for. The B-plot is pretty uninteresting, but that's beside the point. If we look at this outside of simply being a romcom, this falls quite flat.
In a movie that centres around death, it's often quite easy to handle the subject matter poorly, or in a way that doesn't feel like 'enough'. Sometimes characters can seem completely unaffected by the death that was once all-encompassing, with this change happening almost in an instant. Voicemails For Isabelle seemed like a story that was built for this not to happen, yet somehow it still somewhat does. Even though Jill does spend the entire movie talking to her sister, only the parts of the movie where she's sending those voicemails actually feel as if they deal with this death. Aside from that small montage right after her sister died, it didn't seem to affect her all that much. Of course, I'm not asking for Jill to be wallowing in her sadness for the entire movie, but there should be a good amount of acknowledgement of that loss throughout.
The first act of this movie seems to make it its mission to shove as many Gen Z slang buzzwords in as possible, which are all incredibly forced and unnecessary. Luckily, after a while, this does stop because I don't know if I could have sat through this if it persisted.
At times, it feels as if we miss out on massive parts of these people's lives with no explanation, sometimes parts that seem crucial to many relationships of these characters. First off, Wes very quickly becomes obsessed with Jill's life within moments; surely, there must have been some amount of time in between that was cut. Second, and slightly less significant but still worth mentioning, we go from Wes returning home from his first meeting with Jill, to Wes' friend's wedding, where Jill seems to know them as if they're quite good friends, implying there was a lot of development in Jill and Wes' relationship that we missed.
The best parts of this movie seemed to come from the relationship between Jill and her sister, Isabelle. One moment that I did love was the final scene. We see Jill's final voicemail to Isabelle, in turn seeing just how beautiful their relationship really was. This being interrupted by Robyn's Dancing On My Own, a manifestation of Isabelle's spirit and her relationship with Jill, was an absolutely perfect end.
I'll end by saying, while I don't think I quite fit the target audience for this movie, it will definitely find that audience. For the people this is made for, I'm sure this is an amazing watch, and if you're a fan of the classic romcoms of the '90s, you will love this.
No AI was used in writing this article.