Fans of romance author Emily Henry finally have a chance to see a few of their fan-favorite book characters come to life. Netflix released the official trailer for People We Meet on Vacation on Tuesday, giving audiences their first full-length look at the project bringing Henry’s best-selling romance novel to life. And while this summer beach read-based movie is set to premiere on the wintry date of Jan. 9, the new Netflix trailer is dropping viewers directly into some sunny, vacation paradises. The temps are hot and the romance is even hotter — what says summer better than that?
The new Netflix rom-com follows the story and relationship of Poppy Wright (Emily Bader) and Alex Nilsen (Tom Blyth), two best friends who meet up every year for a jet-setting, adventurous summer holiday. Poppy’s mentality for work, life, and play all revolves around one idea. “On vacation, you can be anyone you want,” she says in the trailer. “That’s why I want to travel. You can actually be who you want to be instead of who they say you are.” There’s a big difference between Real-life Poppy and Vacation-Poppy, an adventuring mindset she loves to share with Alex. But when the two personas begin to mix, Poppy and Alex are forced to realize that being “just friends” might not be enough for either of them.
In the past five years, Henry has become synonymous with modern and heartfelt takes on the romance genre. She’s written four New York Times Best Sellers and has sold more than 8 million books worldwide. With its January release, People We Meet on Vacation is the first of Henry’s cinematic universe to make it to big screens — her books Beach Read, Book Lovers, Happy Place, and Funny Story are all in various stages of production.
Making both movie lovers and book fanatics happy with an adaptation is a careful balancing act. While Henry told her Instagram followers in a recent promotion for the film that the movie does have “a couple of differences” from the book, the author said she thinks it makes the final product even more fun for people who feel in love with Poppy and Alex’s story on the page first. “We’ve moved a lot of the book from Palm Springs to Barcelona, so there’s some fun new like set dressing that they haven’t already experienced. But more than that, I think it’s like these added scenes that were used to do, like a truncated version of stuff that happens in the book,” Henry said. “That means we get new dialogue between Poppy and Alex, new moments, new jokes, new beats of affection. It’s kind of like we get extra pieces of them and I really think that the readers are gonna just eat that up.”
In addition to leads Bader (My Lady Jane) and Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Battle of Songbirds and Snakes), People We Meet on Vacation also stars Sarah Catherine Hook, Lukas Gage, Jameela Jamil, Lucien Laviscount, Alan Ruck, and Molly Shannon. The film is directed by Brett Haley (All the Bright Places, Hearts Beat Loud) and written by Yulin Kuang — who is also set to direct the adaptation of Beach Read. Poppy and Alex’s love story will be available to stream on Netflix on Jan. 9.
