Voicemails for Isabelle

Netflix

This article was published on 6/23 and republished on 6/25.

Netflix has a new #1 movie in its top 10 list, a romantic comedy that seems to have pleased both critics and audiences alike, far from a sure thing in that genre.

The film is Voicemails for Isabelle, which I thought was going to be based on a book from 2010 or so when people still left voicemails, but that’s not the case. Rather, Voicemails for Isabelle is written and directed by Leah McKendrick as an entirely original production. With so many adaptations of romantic novels hitting the screens, this is certainly unusual. And apparently welcome.

Voicemails for Isabelle stars Not Okay’s Zoey Deutch and Love, Simon’s Nick Robinson (McKendrick, also an actress, has a role as well). Deutch’s Jill leaves voicemails for her dead sister as a way of coping with the loss, but when the number is reassigned, connects with Robinson’s Austin who begins receiving the messages instead. Romance follows, naturally.

The film currently has a great 86% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and an even better 91% score from audiences, meaning it’s not just well-watched, it’s also well-liked. A comparison could be made to To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, based on books by Jenny Han, which turned into a trilogy and even has a spinoff series that has run for three seasons, XO Kitty. The first film has a fantastic 96% from critics and an 84% from audiences, though the following two reviewed well below that, especially on the audience side (41% and 58%). It stands to reason that if Voicemails for Isabelle is a hit, maybe McKendrick could continue the story from there.

This definitely isn’t a high school romance, both Deutch and Robinson are 31, meaning this skews older. Interestingly, this is the second well-scored Zoey Deutch romantic comedy on Netflix, as she made Set It Up way back in 2018 with the not-yet-broken-out Glenn Powell, who didn’t really blow up as an A-lister until 2022’s Top Gun Maverick. Set It Up had a 92% audience score.

Romantic comedy fans are sometimes hard to please, though often that can be due to changes from the original books they don’t like. Here, however, there are no books, and this is one of the best Rotten Tomatoes audience scores we’ve seen in this genre on Netflix to date, though more reviews are still to come. It seems likely to stay on top of Netflix’s top 10 list for a while, given all this, unseating the much-different True Crime film, Maternal Instinct which has topped the list for a while now, and is now in second place. But Voicemails for Isabelle may be there for some time to come.

Update (6/25): Checking back in on Voicemails for Isabelle, the movie remains #1 on Netflix’s top 10 list, holding off all other comers, including a string of popular kids movies: GOAT, Home, Minions Rise of Gru, KPop Demon Hunters (it will never leave!) and Despicable Me 3.

Rotten Tomatoes scores have barely changed either, the critic score only slipping 1% to 85%, and the audience score still holding strong at 91%, making this one of the highest audience-rated original Netflix romantic comedies we’ve seen.

I’ve since learned that this story, again, not based on an original novel, was crafted by writer-director Leah McKendrick over the last seven years, and was based heavily on her love for her own sister, Olivia Isabelle, inspiring the name of the sister in the book. But don’t worry, the similarities end there, as her sister is alive and did not share the same fate as movie Isabelle.

There is still no talk of a sequel, and knowing how much backstory went into the film over all this time, it stands to reason there won’t be. I still haven’t watched it yet, but my wife has twice, and told me to watch the first five minutes of the film and not be moved. She was right, I was moved, and I’ll watch the full thing when I can.

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