.png){kind=logo}
SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers from “People We Meet on Vacation,” now streaming on Netflix.
Book lovers reached their happy place Friday when the film adaptation of Emily Henry‘s beloved beach read “People We Meet on Vacation” dropped on Netflix.
Starring Emily Bader and Tom Blyth as longtime best friends Poppy and Alex, the movie follows the odd-couple pairing throughout many years of travels as the free-spirited Poppy and up-tight Alex grow up and struggle with their increasingly intimate feelings for one another.
In a shock to no one who is a fan of rom-coms — which make up the bulk of Henry’s books, almost all of which are being developed for film — Poppy and Alex get together in the end, but first need to overcome their biggest fear: losing their best friend to gain a chance at romance with the love of their life.
As with many book-to-screen adaptations, changes were made during the filmmaking process, which was overseen by director Brett Haley and Henry herself from a script written by Yulin Kuang. But by far the biggest difference between the “People We Meet on Vacation” movie and the book it’s based on is the spiciness of the climactic sex scene between Poppy and Alex.
“So here’s what I’ll say. I saw the scene as he shot it, and it was gorgeous and perfect,” Henry told Variety. “I mean, I feel a little bit guilty because I went and told all of my friends, ‘It’s one of the sexiest sex scenes I’ve ever seen in my life.’ Like, genuinely it was like ‘Titanic’ level to me. It was so, so good and raw and tender. So when Brett first started considering cutting it, that was because they had started doing test screenings and people who, especially people who weren’t familiar with the books, felt kind of like it was a hard right turn in the movie. And so Brett first brought that to me and asked, how important is seeing the sex scene to you and to your readers? And I was like, I think it is kind of important, in a way, because it’s something we’re destigmatizing, etc. But ultimately, my opinion would be that if it doesn’t fit in the movie, then it doesn’t work. It has to serve the larger movie. I don’t want anyone to feel like they were jolted out of the story, and feel like they hopped rails into a different movie.”
See below for more from Variety‘s interviews with Henry and Haley about Netflix’s “People We Meet on Vacation” film adaptation and what else needed to be cut and altered.
Changing the location of the book’s present-day-trip storyline from a Palm Springs to Barcelona
Emily Henry: Brett asked early on. He told me, “This is not really going to work to shoot in Palm Springs. That’s a really tall order.” And the funny thing that I always come back to is that not even the movie “Palm Springs” was shot in Palm Springs, that was shot elsewhere. That sealed the deal for me right off the bat that this is a fine change. I love Palm Springs and so I set the book in Palm Springs, because I love it and it’s an excuse to travel there and all that. But as far as story goes, it didn’t feel essential at all. What felt essential was that they were staying somewhere very, very, very hot. Uncomfortably hot. And so Brett brought the possibility of Barcelona to me. He knew that he really wanted to try and keep the Tuscany trip, and he knew that if we filmed in Spain, we would be able to use different locations to capture both Tuscany and Spain. And I had never been to Spain, so I was on board again because it was an opportunity for a trip for me.
And he was excited about the fact that it could make the story and the scope of the movie feel really big to have multiple big international destinations. I feel this movie does have an international audience, too. So that’s a nice thing, too, to be able to get a couple of different countries represented on some level. But I was honestly fine with that change. I knew that that might be a harder one for the readers, because they pictured it all in Palm Springs, which looks quite different, but it didn’t change the story fundamentally, so I was fine with it.
Brett Haley: What happens is, there’s logistics in making a film. I don’t have control over when the film is greenlit or how it’s greenlit. This movie was greenlit, and it was a go, go, go type situation. We didn’t have much time, and it was very clear on the budget that we had to shoot this film, that Palm Springs wasn’t an option at the time. There’s no crew there, it would have been a whole situation. And then California didn’t have any connections to any other parts of the book or the movie and the tax credit wasn’t around then. It was just a logistical change and we knew that we needed Europe settings, and what location could give us most bang for our buck?
So when I called Emily, and I just said, “Hey, what about Barcelona for the wedding instead of Palm Springs?,” she totally got it. And I said, “Let’s really look at that, what happens in that vacation?” And if you go back to the book, most of it is in an Airbnb with an air conditioner that doesn’t work. That’s the thing that was most important, and the balcony scene, which fans of the book will know what I mean, that was most important.
And the wedding itself, and I think the wedding in this film is one of the most beautiful sets I’ve ever shot on. And Barcelona was a great stand in very hot in Barcelona, I can, I can attest, and, and I think we pulled off the balcony scene and, and the Airbnb stuff as great as possible, because that’s when he started realizing, like, it’s not really about being in Palm Springs, about these two being together again, stuck together after two. Years of something that went down, and we’re trying to figure out why. So at the end of the day, the location of that one wasn’t as as crucial to Poppy and Alex’s journey as maybe some of the other ones, but we did our best to pick the other locations and nail those and make it feel like, yeah, we’re we’re really in these places
Which of Poppy and Alex’s trips from the book made it into the film and which got cut
Henry: When Brett formally got the job, the first thing he did was call me and just assure me that basically we were on the same team, and that he wanted to know everything that the readers were going to be looking for and hoping for from the movie, and he wanted also to know what I was going to be looking for and hoping for from the movie. And so I gave him fairly comprehensive list of what I thought the readers were really going to have a checklist of what they were waiting for. And it was a long list an we could not get every single thing i,n but he found creative ways to get so many of the little in jokes and bits of dialogue in. And I didn’t really have that strong of feelings that any specific location needed to be in the movie. It was more plot points.
Tuscany, to me, was a very important trip. It didn’t have to be set in Tuscany — it still is in the movie and the book — but it was more just that the events of that felt really important to me. And Brett instantly was really excited about New Orleans. He’s from Florida, and has a lot of affection and love for New Orleans, as do I. And New Orleans is just a cinematic city. It feels like a party. There were so many reasons that it was one of the right destinations to home in on. I didn’t feel that precious about any one of the locations. And again, the thing that I’ve always come back to during this process is that the book is always going to exist. So if he had wanted to do all new vacations, I would have considered it. I mean, I would have definitely stopped to think, how are the readers going to feel about this? But as far as how I personally would respond, that would have been fine if they still had the same emotional beats and the same jokes and things that I knew people were going to be hoping for.
Haley: I didn’t want to do any green screen. I didn’t want to fake it in that way. Obviously, we had to fake stuff like, we’re-in-Canada-but-we’re-not-in-Canada stuff. But I didn’t want to VFX goop it up and make it something where the audience went, “This doesn’t feel real. This feels something’s off here.” It needed to feel like we were on vacation with them. So it was a logistical thing where Spain represented a location that we could get a lot of different locations, we could make a lot work there. And then the other half of it for me, which was non-negotiable, was New Orleans, which is my favorite vacation in the movie, one of my favorite cities in the world. And so I said, well, we have to do New Orleans — and then what can we get out of Louisiana? And then how can we do really subtle things to make sure this sells as Ohio, New York, Boston, Tuscany, Squamish.
Toning down the spiciness of the sex scene
Henry: So here’s what I’ll say. I saw the scene as he shot it, and it was gorgeous and perfect. I mean, I feel a little bit guilty because I went and told all of my friends, “It’s one of the sexiest sex scenes I’ve ever seen in my life.” Like, genuinely it was like “Titanic” level to me. It was so, so good and raw and tender. So when Brett first started considering cutting it, that was because they had started doing test screenings and people who, especially people who weren’t familiar with the books, felt kind of like it was a hard right turn in the movie. And so Brett first brought that to me and asked, how important is seeing the sex scene to you and to your readers? And I was like, I think it is kind of important, in a way, because it’s something we’re destigmatizing, etc. But ultimately, my opinion would be that if it doesn’t fit in the movie, then it doesn’t work. It has to serve the larger movie. I don’t want anyone to feel like they were jolted out of the story, and feel like they hopped rails into a different movie.
And I think part of it is that we start with Tom and Emily in college, and they feel very young in those scenes, in my opinion. And you look at them in a different way, and you get to watch them grow up, but it does feel a little bit different than if you were watching a movie about two 40 year olds or something. You’ve been with them since they were just-barely-not children.
So it’ll be interesting, because I do think that that will be something that will vary from adaptation to adaptation [with the other book-to-film projects]. Because I think the tone of the different projects are not necessarily all going to be the same tone as “People We Meet on Vacation,” just like I don’t think the books are exactly the same tone. So I do think we’ll have some sexier sex scenes, and I think we’ll have others that are more a traditional, classic rom-com fade-to-black situation. I think we’ll see the full gamut. And Brett and I have also talked about, I wonder if someday there could be a director’s cut where people can see this scene? Because it is really so beautiful, like, they all just outdid themselves. It feels so tender and real, but very, very sexy and romantic, and it just didn’t fit in the movie. And that’s what they say, kill your darlings. Like, if it doesn’t work in the larger project, it doesn’t really matter how good it is on its own.
Haley: I think this one is so unique because it’s friends to lovers, and that’s a difficult thing to get right. I don’t think many films have been successful in it, because I think there’s a problem in going, well, just get together. You guys love each door, get together. But I think smart people know that when you have a really close friend, there’s an immense amount of inherent risk, and there’s no coming back if you cross that line. So for me, it was important that Tom and Emily had friendship chemistry and then romantic chemistry, and could we could feel that.
In terms of the steamier stuff, I think it was a tonal question for me. I just kept going back to the romantic comedies that I adore. Like, I wanted to do right by Emily’s book. And so we shot a scene that was literally, exactly what’s in the book, and readers know what that means. It, frankly, just didn’t gel with the film. It just didn’t tonally work. So it was really about finding the balance. I do want to push this genre forward, and I do think that rom-coms can be extremely sexy. And I think that this one is that. You have your classics, like “When Harry Met Sally” and “Notting Hill,” where there’s very little sex there. I mean, it’s extremely sweet, and you feel the chemistry, and it really works, but it doesn’t go too far. And I just kept coming back to those films like “Jerry Maguire” and all these films that just really inspired this film and saying, yeah, this doesn’t fit. The level of spiciness does not fit this tone. You see them grow up, you see them as kids, and then you see them as adults. And so it was really important to me to find a balance. And I think we did. I think we found the balance in the steaminess and the sexiness versus just the wholesomeness and the earnestness of their love. And I think what’s there really works and is true to the spirit of the book without tonally breaking the film, which was really one of the only things that I was like, oh, this, this idea that I had for this scene to be true to Emily’s book just frankly, didn’t work.
How Poppy and Alex end up on the final trip together — with them running into each other at baggage claim on arrival vs. planning to meet up from the start
We still keep the idea that she lies and says, “I’m going to Barcelona, too!” We wanted to really build up the possibility of conflict. And, like, wow, whatever went down between Poppy and Alex must have been bad. But deep down, they both want to see each other again. Like, that’s clear. And I think that’s from the book. There was something in when you read the book, it worked to be like, “Let’s go on one last trip and see if we can do this.” There was something in the film that just felt a little too easy. It just felt like, again, you want to pause the film and go, “Why are they not getting together?”
And when I came up with the baggage claim scene, which I’m very proud of, I was like, on one hand, it’s chance, and on another hand, it’s very much Poppy being Poppy, and them being in the same place and getting sort of stuck together. It took a lot of figuring it out, but it feels like the stakes are higher to me for the film. And it’s not to say the stakes aren’t high in the book, it’s just a different type of stakes. And I would call one book stakes and movie stakes, and they just require different things and different elements. And again, we kept Emily Henry very close throughout all of this, I didn’t make any decisions without going to her and saying, “What do you think of this change? How do you feel about this?”
I think it’s really important that Poppy still makes the decision to go. She still lies, she still makes the decision to go to see him, and he still calls her out to say, “What are you really doing here? Because I know the answer isn’t to cover some Barcelona story, it’s to see me, right?” So that was the most important thing, and I think we just needed a little bit more tension and drama in that for the film. It just required a little bit more. It’s those nuances in the adaptation that just show you what a movie is asking for and what a book is asking for. I think they’re just different things.
These interviews have been edited and condensed.
English (US) ·