Netflix's latest release, Voicemails for Isabelle, arrives with all the hallmarks of a romantic comedy, but the film ventures into far deeper emotional territory. At its core, it's a story about loss, sisterhood, and how grief and love become inseparable.
The film centers on Jill (Zoey Deutch), who copes with the death of her sister and best friend Isabelle (Ciara Bravo) by leaving voicemails on a phone number that accidentally belongs to Wes (Nick Robinson), a man she'll eventually fall for. It's the kind of premise that could easily collapse into sentimentality, but writer-director Leah McKendrick crafted something more nuanced.
Deutch was moved by the script immediately. "I think [McKendrick] did a really beautiful job navigating a very intense subject, and when I read it, I felt that it was a really beautiful portrayal of what it feels like to love someone so much and lose them," she says. "It's the heart of the film, the sister love story."
Robinson sees the architecture differently. He argues that Jill's capacity for grief and her capacity for love expand together, making the film less about romance alone and more about the dual love stories threading through her life. "This isn't a love story just as much between Jill and Isabelle as it is between Jill and Wes," he explains. "That was a really beautiful aspect to this whole story."
McKendrick conceived the project over eight years ago, not from personal tragedy but from admiration. "My sister is alive and well, she's healthy, but it was really just inspired by her being my soulmate and wanting to write a love letter to sisterhood," she says.
The director wanted to push back against how culture prioritizes romantic love above all else. "We focus so much in our society on romantic love, and we say, 'I haven't found love' or 'I'm looking for love', as though the only type of love that exists is romantic love," McKendrick reflects. She's experienced connections with family and friends that rival any romantic bond. "I feel deeply connected to my husband, but it's different," she says. "When I die someday, I will know that I have lived a life of love, and one part of it was romantic love."
For McKendrick, her sister represented her first and deepest love, which made it natural to center a story on familial bonds while still honoring the romantic subplot. "The love of my life, that first true love that I experienced, was my little sister," she says.
The chemistry between Deutch and Robinson carries the lighter moments. The pair knew each other since their teens, which gave them an existing foundation. "Nick and I have known each other a while, since we were teens," Deutch says. "So we've had a friendship, a history, and a foundation of time between us that I think really lends itself towards having that chemistry." They even underwent an official chemistry test at the Netflix office, which they passed without difficulty.
Deutch is aware that Voicemails for Isabelle diverges from her earlier Netflix success, Set it Up. "That one leans much more into the comedy realm, and this leans much more into the drama realm, while also still having a lot of laugh-out-loud elements," she says. "I made it hoping they would love it."
The film is now streaming on Netflix.
Author Jessica Williams: "This film understands something most rom-coms miss: that the people we grieve for teach us how to love the people we find."
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