From the late 1980s through the 2010s, the romantic comedy reigned supreme. Filmmakers such as Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron, Rob Reiner, Garry Marshall and Richard Curtis ruled the box office with relatively low budgets and incredibly high rewatchability once they reached home video and, later, streaming platforms. Although rom-coms were often dismissed as “lesser” entertainment, they became household staples, launched careers (Meg Ryan, Anne Hathaway, Nicholas Cage) and pop culture epicenters. Entering the 2020s, romantic comedies have all but disappeared completely from mainstream theaters, losing the talent and chick-flic following that once shaped them, amidst a sea of action adventure and high-budget drama features. A case study in what remains in this wasteland of romantic comedy can be found in the most recent edition to the dying genre, “People We Meet On Vacation.”
Directed by Brett Haley, “People We Meet on Vacation” is a romantic comedy that backtracks the history of a burnt-out travel writer and a small-town high school teacher who met in college and forged a meaningful friendship out of taking annual vacations together. After two years of silence caused by run-of-the-mill mysterious rom-com conflict, they are brought back together for a sibling’s gay wedding, an emerging trope in contemporary romance stories. The film borrows a “When Harry Met Sally” premise out of its grounded reality and reimagines their friends to lovers in the travel destinations of your dreams, intertwining the audience’s idealistic imagination of both exotic adventure and true romance.
“People We Meet on Vacation” is, first and foremost, rich-people nonsense, but so many great rom-coms are. Nancy Meyers, director of “The Holiday” and “What Men Want,” built a career staging expensive environments for love to flourish through elaborate modernist interior design. There is a whole subgenre for travel romance. Perhaps the only rom-com of the past 10 years to reach similar mass appeal, outside of the YA Netflix category that requires its own separate evaluation, is “Crazy Rich Asians,” a film as opulent as the title suggests. These films work as an avenue for the audience to escape their much-less-glamorous life, which “People We Meet on Vacation” succeeds in doing, with the double benefit of an overarching moral that “travel isn’t everything.”
While rom-coms have certainly lost their cultural relevance, they are still being made — some with great success due to their grounded, character-driven approaches. “Rye Lane” (2023) and “Palm Springs” (2020) are two such examples, taking place over a day and focusing on the chemistry and development of its sincere protagonists. Both were denied a wide theatrical release, leaving “Anyone But You” (2023) as one of the only rom-coms to be spotlighted in theaters. Ironically, “Anyone But You” is a cultural signifier of the death of the rom-com, due in part to how static and uninspired its female lead is.
Poppy, the female lead of “People We Meet on Vacation,” played by Emily Bader, is a rom-com girl at her core, reflecting the bubbly naivety and over-the-top excitement of chick-flic legends like Elle Woods and Jenna Rink. This hand-me-down character is in the film’s benefit, as rom-coms have always thrived on being derivative; take how many times classic romance movies reference “Casablanca,” “When Harry Met Sally” or even Tupac’s character’s riff on “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” in “Poetic Justice.”
Rom-coms are nothing without the driving force of two strong leads. Bader, who proved her romance media acting chops in the underrated “My Lady Jane,” steps into her character with the grace and specificity of rom-com legends before her. Tom Blyth, who plays Alex, is best known for his role as Captain Snow in “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” but previously showed his depth for romance in the tender and heartbreaking “Plainclothes” (2025).
Understanding Alex, who is basically a yearning piece of cardboard, requires remembering that the film adapts a novel by leading romance novelist Emily Henry. The increasingly popular male lead archetype in the romance novel genre is a secretly sad, outwardly suave, physically strong but ultimately quiet man. Apparently, his only motivation in life is secretly loving and, after routine rom-com conflict, desperately groveling for the female lead (if this sounds familiar, it has even infiltrated romance TV shows: see Conrad Fisher in the final season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty”). In some ways, Alex resists this, as he also has a passionate love for Linfield, Ohio that knows no bounds. Still, quite like most modern romance novel male leads, he remains a sexy piece of heavy-duty paper, requiring true rom-com lovers to long for the days of Johnny Castle in “Dirty Dancing.”
“People We Meet on Vacation” is not necessarily a bad rom-com, retaining each story beat with charming performances (even from Mr. Cardboard) and attractive set pieces — its heterosexual conflict doesn’t even derail the gay wedding too badly, which is what I call representation. Where the mainstream rom-com genre has reached a lull, this film attempts to fill it by selecting its favorite of past tropes and subgenres. It is also the first of the inevitable onslaught of Emily Henry-adapted films, which will no doubt be quickly exhausted.Though a step in the right direction, this Emily Henry-fest will not be enough for rom-coms to regain their rightful place on the pop culture throne.
Watch “People We Meet on Vacation” if you are looking for something to escape into. If you are looking for an underseen romantic comedy that lives in the margins, check out “Rye Lane,” “Fire Island,” “A Nice Indian Boy,” “Lisa Frankenstein” or “Dinner in America.” This Valentine’s Day, consider being the gay couple you wish to watch get married behind your rom-com leads.
