You know when you watch a movie and that one annoying, usually right, person always tells you, ‘Aw man, you should have read the book!’? Yeah, maybe that doesn’t apply this time around. While I was waiting for the fifth episode release of “Heated Rivalry,” I read the books and was pleased. Other than the few episodes I’d already watched, this was one of the first instances where I actually read the book beforehand, and I’m afraid it set my expectations too high. Obviously, an adaptation of a book can’t include every scene and detail, but that show certainly portrayed it well. So, when I heard “People We Meet on Vacation” was getting a movie, directed by Brett Haley, I knew immediately I had to read the book before I even watched the trailer, but that was my first mistake.
“People We Meet on Vacation” by Emily Henry is your traditional romance novel, featuring two best friends, Poppy Wright and Alex Nilsen. Even before any romantic instances between the two arise, they are very much the epitome of “opposites attract.” Poppy is your classic impulsive and outgoing adventurer, working as a blogger for a high-end travel magazine. Alex is a rational introvert and high school English teacher, always being pulled out of his comfort zone by Poppy. Meeting as two Boston College freshmen during orientation, they bonded over the fact that they’re both from the fictional city of Linfield, Ohio, and ultimately carpooled back together during break. From then on, Alex served as Poppy’s travel planner and companion.
Due to a reason unknown to the reader at that point in the story, the two split up just a couple of years before the current day, and until then, the novel goes through each summer chronologically, swapping between the past and present every chapter or so, until the two ultimately meet. Once the book finally enters the year that breaks the two apart, we learn that, while they share feelings for each other, Alex misunderstands Poppy’s intentions. Simultaneously, Poppy has been increasingly jealous–whether she wants to admit it or not–over Alex’s on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sarah Torval.
It is made clear that Alex is a great guy and ultimately overcomes an immense social eclosion through his friendship with Poppy. He’s so perfect, in fact, that he even gets a vasectomy after he learns about Poppy’s pregnancy scare and the impact it would’ve had on her, something he wasn’t even responsible for. But don’t hold your breath, because his character arc and overall amazingness certainly don’t hold up when it comes to the big screen.
While, understandably, smaller elements were changed, such as vacation locations—presumably due to budgets and filming permissions—there were way too many crucial plot details that were completely changed, seemingly for no good reason but “creative liberty.” One key detail is the motel the duo books for the modern-day summer: at this point, Poppy has quit her job without telling Alex, so, as a way to make an excuse to accompany Alex as a plus-one to his brother’s wedding, she claims that she is working on a “traveling-on-a-budget” issue for that month. Seeing as Poppy is funding this trip on her own dime, the motel she books is lackluster at best. A room with one bed, an under-construction balcony, and a barely functioning air conditioning unit is what they’re constricted to for a week, which forces intimacy and discussion.
Some particularly important scenes from the novel are, firstly, when Alex opts to sleep in the reclining chair despite his bad back and ultimately gets injured by it, so Poppy ends up taking care of him. Secondly, while Poppy is taking care of Alex, they analyze each other’s Tinder profiles. This moment finds Poppy helping Alex improve his account’s photos and bios, and ends up with the two admitting that, if they didn’t know each other, they’d swipe right. While the conversation is played off as friendly advice, it’s evident that it has an impact on the two’s chemistry.
So basically, this dingy, run-down motel with an obnoxiously worthless owner is absolutely crucial to these two developing a conscious romantic interest–and eventually a relationship–together. But how was it adapted for the screen? The aforementioned motel: A fancy Airbnb with a slightly broken AC. Alex’s bad back: Hurting it while fixing the AC–not because he was doing some chivalrous behavior by opting out of the obviously more comfortable bed in the name of Poppy’s comfort. The Tinder profiles? Never even mentioned. You may say, ‘Oh, well, whatever romantic spark that was changed out was obviously put in somewhere else,’ and you’re technically not wrong.
In the novel, the summer that splits them up finds the two alone in Croatia–basically, one thing leads to another, and they have a drunken kiss. From this, the sober versions of the duo construct the incident as a mistake, basically rejecting each other despite their obvious mutual interest. At this point, Poppy is clearly overthinking and having a borderline midlife crisis, while Alex only wants to agree with Poppy about her feelings towards the kiss, again for the sake of her comfort, leading to classic miscommunication.
As for the movie, well, this is Alex’s downfall: the summer takes place in Tuscany, instead of Croatia–no big deal–but this time, their partners come along, and, more importantly, Alex’s partner is Sarah. Everything goes as well as one could imagine, until the two have an emotional near-kiss in the pouring rain. And, if things couldn’t get worse, Alex goes and proposes to Sarah the very next day. What happened to the caring, vasectomy-getting at the drop of a hat, cat-lover that we got to know? Because the Alex I know would never even consider physically cheating or even actually emotionally cheating on any one of his partners and then propose to said partner less than 24 hours later.
The story wraps up with a predictable cliche. After revealing their mutual feelings, Alex and Poppy soon lose that connection due to a miscommunication between them, with Alex assuming Poppy’s intentions to be using him as an escape from her “miserable” home life, and, in typical romance book fashion, she goes chasing after him in his hometown, at the teacher-bar he regulars after work, declaring her love for him.
This is particularly romantic because she does this while simultaneously doing the thing she hates most in the world: going back to her old high school. Honestly, while disappointed because the ending was changed, the point still stood in the movie, so I wasn’t that annoyed. Instead of a high school and teacher bar, it shows Poppy trying to talk to Alex at his childhood home, then finding him on a jog, with his headphones on, oblivious to the outside world. So, naturally, she runs after him–movie Poppy’s version of going back to her old high school–and then she declares her love once she finally catches his attention, and they all live happily ever after.
Basically, this adaptation sucked, but emphasis on adaptation, because the movie itself wasn’t too bad. The acting from Emily Bader–Poppy–and Tom Bylth–Alex–was pretty good. I thought the nuances of each character’s very differing personalities were portrayed as well as they could with the plot changes that were put onto them. The cinematography wasn’t anything spectacular, but it’s not like it was necessarily something poor to note. So, ultimately, if you haven’t read the book, watch the movie; if you enjoy a good romcom, you would like it! But, if you have read it, maybe give it a few months before you watch the film; otherwise, it may aggravate you to the point of writing a two-page article complaining about it, as it did me.
