Film: People We Meet On Vacation

Two Successes
1. This is a classic ‘Opposites Attract’ romcom, the genre is very familiar to us all so we know what we are getting before we start watching. “Ditzy, impulsive Poppy meets cautious, organised Alex. There’s no way this could work as a relationship…is there?” The plot is along the lines of an updated When Harry Met Sally, where a scatterbrained woman meets a cynical man, and the film is sweet, reassuring and very funny in places.

2. The two young, attractive lead actors, Emily Bader and Tom Blyth, are perfect for this story, plus there are some great supporting actors e.g. Alan Ruck, Molly Shannon, Jameela Jamil, Lucien Laviscount. The settings are also ideal, showing the adventurous holidays Poppy and Alex go on, as the title indicates.

Two Improvements
1. The structure of the film is confusing. It keeps jumping from today to 9 years ago; 8 years ago; 7 years ago etc. It is often hard to know where we are in time.
Fix: show today, then go back to when Poppy and Alex first met. Then continue along that timeline until we reach today again. Also they could clearly define the time periods by what Alex and Poppy are wearing e.g. Poppy could have a different hairstyle each time, which would emphasise her impulsive nature.

2. There is too much telling instead of showing the main characters’ personalities.
Fix: instead of telling us how ditzy Poppy is and how cautious Alex is, the actors could go further and show extreme behaviours. The silly scenes could be more silly, the serious scenes more serious, and more of a contrast shown between the two characters.