Updated

Updated · The A.V. Club · Jun 19

Voicemails For Isabelle Revives 2 Fading Genres as Netflix’s Best Dramedy in Years

Updated

Updated · The A.V. Club · Jun 19

Voicemails For Isabelle Revives 2 Fading Genres as Netflix’s Best Dramedy in Years

Q: Is Netflix's new rom-com a charming love story or a modern tale of digital stalking?

It is both, but it works best as a charming rom-com that knowingly flirts with the line into digital stalking. The strongest evidence on the film’s side is its reception. Critics have broadly praised Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson for standout chemistry, and Leah McKendrick’s writing and direction for balancing comedy, romance and grief. Reviews describe the movie as emotionally resonant, with Jill’s voicemails serving less as a gimmick than as an expression of mourning for her sister. That emotional core is a major reason many critics say the film rises above Netflix’s more formulaic recent rom-coms. At the same time, the discomfort is real and central to the premise. Wes does not simply receive a wrong-number message; he listens to Jill’s deeply private voicemails, becomes attached, and then seeks her out without immediately telling her who he is. Several reviewers explicitly call that creepy, invasive or stalker-like. Some also note that the film itself seems aware of the problem, even joking about the gap between a classic Tom Hanks-style rom-com setup and how such behavior reads now. So the fairest reading is that “Voicemails for Isabelle” is designed as a love story, but one built on a premise that modern audiences may reasonably find ethically troubling. Whether it feels charming or unsettling will depend largely on how much weight a viewer gives to the leads’ chemistry and the grief storyline versus the privacy violation at the center of the plot.

Q: Is the movie's true love story between the romantic leads or the two grieving sisters?

The film’s emotional core is the love between Jill and her late sister Isabelle, even though its main plot is a romance between Jill and Wes. The news story makes clear that “Voicemails for Isabelle” is built as a rom-com: Wes inherits Isabelle’s old number, hears Jill’s messages, and goes looking for her, with Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson’s chemistry driving much of the praise. But the searched material repeatedly points to the sister bond as the story’s deepest and most affecting relationship. Critics describe Jill and Isabelle’s connection as the film’s “most credible and affecting element,” and note that the opening spends significant time establishing them as sisters who are also best friends. That reading is reinforced by the filmmakers and cast. Leah McKendrick has said the film was deeply inspired by her own sister and that, while it is a romantic comedy, it is “very much about their familial bond.” Nick Robinson similarly said it is “just as much of a love story between Jill and Isabelle as it is a love story between Jill and Wes,” framing grief as “love with nowhere to go.” So the fairest answer is that the movie tells two love stories at once. The romantic arc belongs to Jill and Wes, but the truer, more distinctive love story—the one that gives the film its weight, motive, and identity—is between Jill and Isabelle. Wes is the future; Isabelle is the heart.

3 articles · Updated · The A.V. Club · Jun 19

Leah McKendrick’s “Voicemails For Isabelle” is being hailed as Netflix’s strongest dramedy in years, blending a rom-com with a tearjerker centered on two sisters.
Early scenes establish Isabelle and Jill’s bond with sharp, character-driven humor, giving emotional weight to Isabelle’s death before the main plot fully unfolds.
The review says the film avoids the broad gags common in many streaming rom-coms, instead drawing comedy from personality, history and intimate inside jokes.
Set against Isabelle’s cystic fibrosis and Jill’s move to San Francisco to pursue pastry work, the story is framed as a modern update of female-led dramedies popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
A separate review also praised Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson’s chemistry, reinforcing Netflix’s June 19 release as a rare streaming romance with both comic and emotional pull.