Jill (Zoey Deutch) is an aspiring baker who leaves voicemails for her dead sister detailing her chaotic life in San Francisco. Wes (Nick Robinson) is a Texan real-estate agent whose new work phone is receiving Jill’s tell-all missives. Sparks soon fly.
The romcom renaissance is upon us. It started unassumingly enough, a Rye Lane here and an Anyone But You there. But in the last couple of months alone we’ve had Finding Emily and Office Romance, and now writer-director Leah McKendrick’s lovely Netflix warm-and-fuzzies-triggerer Voicemails For Isabelle (aka You’ve Got Voicemail) comes along. And honestly, not a moment too soon. It seems at a time where it’s become so easy to see nothing but war, hate and division in our everyday lives, the humble romantic comedy has returned to allow us an escape into a world where joy, love and connection are still possible… where meets can be cute, ethical quandaries can be quashed by good intentions, everyone dances to Robyn, and Nick Robinson remains forever young.
The set-up for McKendrick’s sophomore feature, which follows the multi-hyphenate’s self-starring 2023 directorial debut Scrambled, is, it must be said, more than a little eyebrow-raising on the face of it. Zoey Deutch stars as Jill, an up-and-coming baker living in San Francisco who — when not being subjected to the workplace outbursts of her pompous boss Chef Bastien (a dependably chuckle-worthy Nick Offerman) or the bedroom outbursts of her latest dates — is relaying said encounters to her cystic fibrosis-stricken sister Isabelle over voicemail. When tragedy — and an unfortunate reassigned number — strikes, however, doe-eyed Texan real-estate agent Wes (the aforementioned, ever-youthful Robinson) finds himself receiving Jill’s confessional recordings.
As soon as Deutch and Robinson share the frame, the atavistic desire to see these two together overrides all logic systems
Now because this is a romcom, which is time and again a realm reserved exclusively for irrational decision-makers, rather than disconnecting the phone and carrying on with his life, Wes finds himself invested in Jill’s love life, before long landing himself in San Fran to set up a (digitally aided-and-abetted) date with destiny. Which, as you can probably figure out, is a great idea — until it’s really not a great idea.
The thing about Voicemails For Isabelle is that yes, its set-up is perhaps just a little bit icky. And yes, there are at least a dozen occasions where you can’t help but think hair-sweeping, mild-mannered would-be lothario Wes could do himself — and Jill — a lot of favours by just fessing up to the whole voicemail thing that obviously has to come out sooner or later. And also yes, just because Will’s lovable soon-to-be-wed pals Andy (Harry Shum Jr.) and Breeda (McKendrick) repeatedly remind him what he’s doing is giving big red-flag energy, that doesn’t make it any less iffy. But here’s the thing: the second Wes and Jill meet, you just won’t care about any of that anymore.
As soon as Deutch and Robinson share the frame — the movie’s Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan aspirations literally spelled out for us, although McKendrick’s alternately zinger-filled and touching writing so winningly evokes Nora Ephron that overt references to her movie, while cute, really aren’t needed at all — the atavistic desire to see these two together, to stay plugged into the terawatt electricity surging through every one of his winsome, Love, Simon honed looks and every one of her ear-to-ear, bulb-bright smiles, overrides all logic systems. And as the duo inevitably fall for one another, their open wounds healing just a little more with each bus tour they take and eminently nommable-looking pud they share — his sensitivity and her strength pulling them both out of the dark, allowing them to let down their walls — the film opens up, goes deep (steady on!), and becomes something entirely its own. Be prepared for the best “eating something and instantly being taken back to a very poignant childhood memory” scene this side of Ratatouille, and an exquisitely deployed needle drop of deep-cut Taylor Swift ballad ‘Marjorie’ that keys into the film’s emotional frequency almost preternaturally well.
As a romcom with a wacky premise, Voicemails For Isabelle is charming, and sweet, and lovely enough as it is. But as the story of two wayward souls who’ve been searching for their loved-ones-lost in all they see and do for so long that the possibility of embracing new love — of letting the love that shaped them help make something new, free of guilt — is as terrifying as it is exciting, this has levels to it that you forget the cosy trappings of the genre can create space for. That Leah McKendrick has been able to make something like this, that’s also sex-positive, also feminist in its formulation, and also manages to be both romantic and comedic in roughly equal measure is incredibly refreshing. And frankly, any movie that factors a flash-mob dance-along to Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’ into its emotional climax is already a must-see. So, what are you waiting for?
The romcom comeback is well and truly on — and Voicemails For Isabelle leads the way. Nick Robinson and Zoey Deutch’s palpable on-screen chemistry is enough to make even the coldest of hearts believe in love.
