Plot Summary: After losing her younger sister, Isabelle, Jill keeps their relationship alive by leaving long, rambling voicemails on Isabelle’s old number. What she doesn’t know is that the number has been reassigned to Wes, a real estate agent in Texas who becomes fascinated by the funny, unfiltered woman on the other end . . . and eventually starts falling for her.

Director: Leah McKendrick

Writer: Leah McKendrick

Runtime: 1 hour 58 mins

Main Cast:

• Zoey Deutch as Jill
• Nick Robinson as Wes
• Ciara Bravo as Isabelle
• Nick Offerman as Chef Bastien
• Lukas Gage as Arthur
• Harry Shum Jr. as Andy
• Leah McKendrick as Breeda
• Megan Danso as Zella
• Toby Sandeman as Tyler
• Spencer Lord as Scott

Review by: Tiffany

This movie had me laughing one minute and emotionally wrecked the next

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As someone who prides myself on being a pretty damn good storyteller myself, there’s something genuinely impressive about a movie that can have me laughing at “My face is a butthole” one minute and crying over a Robyn song the next . . . without either one feeling out of place.

And that’s pretty much the experience of watching Voicemails for Isabelle.

On paper, you’ve got all the ingredients for a movie that could’ve been DEPRESSING AF. 

One sister has cystic fibrosis. The other sister eventually has to figure out how to keep living after losing her. There’s grief. There’s guilt. There’s that whole complicated mess of loving someone with a chronic illness and knowing there are parts of life they don’t get to experience the same way you do.

We’ve seen movies play in similar territory before. A Walk to Remember. Five Feet Apart. The Fault in Our Stars. The ones that made you feel like you were beeing assaulted by ALL THE FEELS. 

But Voicemails for Isabelle is also a romantic comedy . . . and it actually remembers the COMEDY part.

There are terrible dates. An asshole pastry chef. A British relationship expert who is very much giving fuckboi. A tour guide who starts panicking so badly that I was cracking up every time the camera cut back to him.

Yet somehow, all of that exists right alongside some genuinely heartbreaking shit.

It works because the movie doesn’t treat grief like this separate little box somebody steps into whenever it’s time for us to be sad.

It’s just part of life.

You can miss someone and still go on a terrible date. You can be grieving and still be funny as hell. You can be pissed off at work, embarrassed about something stupid, excited about something good, heartbroken, and occasionally a complete mess . . . sometimes all within the same day.

Which feels a lot more like actual life than the idea that once something devastating happens to you, everything afterward has to be sad music and staring wistfully out of windows.

And before any of that can work, the movie has to make you care about the sisters at the center of it.

The wild part is how fricking fast it does.

Jill and Isabelle had NO business making me love them that fast

For this whole movie to work, you have to buy into Jill and Isabelle’s relationship. And they make that part look EASY.

Jill (Zoey Deutch, Zombieland: Double Tap, Vampire Academy) is the older sister. She’s a firecracker, a little chaotic, and absolutely the kind of big sister who stands ten toes down behind her little sister. (If you got any joy out of seeing Lilo mollywap the redheaded homegirl in Lilo & Stitch, you’re gonna love what Jill did to a classmate who cracked a TERRIBLE “joke” about Isabelle.)

Isabelle (Ciara Bravo, Big Time Rush) is younger, has cystic fibrosis, and has had to live vicariously through Jill in some ways because there are things her illness just hasn’t allowed her to do.

But she also does NOT want Jill putting her whole life on hold for her.

That part hit especially close to home for me because I’m the older sister of a sibling with a chronic illness. So there were little pieces of that relationship that felt VERY familiar. That instinct to be protective and want to be there for them, while also knowing they’re their own person and don’t want you rearranging your entire existence around what might happen to them.

And from the time Jill and Isabelle are little, these two are a whole vibe.

They bake together. They talk shit. They laugh at each other. They’re the poster children for your sibling being your first best friend.

You fall in love with them and their relationship in less than 15 minutes.

That impressed the hell out of me because Isabelle isn’t around very long. The movie has a tiny window to make us care about her enough that losing her actually means something for the rest of the story, and Ciara Bravo absolutely pulls it off.

Then there’s their song: “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn.

They’ve had this little dance they do together since they were younger. The first time you see them do their choreography, it’s just a really sweet little sister moment.

But by the end of the movie, that damn song will absolutely be used as a weapon.

The target: YOUR FEELINGS.

Honestly, even though I definitely knew of Robyn and some of her music, this one was new to me. But now, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to hear it out in the wild without immediately thinking about Jill and Isabelle.

Which makes what happens next hurt even more. Because Jill doesn’t just lose her sister. She loses her person. The ONE human on the planet that she felt she could tell everything to.

 And apparently, Jill’s solution to that is to just . . . keep telling her anyway.

Jill keeps living . . . sort of

Because that’s the rude thing about losing someone you love. Your whole world can feel like it just stopped, and meanwhile everything else has the audacity to keep happening.

Jill still has to go to work. She still has bills. She still dates. She still has people getting on her damn nerves. And all of those things keep giving her stories that she would’ve immediately called Isabelle to tell her.

Her job alone provides PLENTY of material.

She’s working as a pastry chef/prep cook under Chef Bastien (Nick Offerman, Parks and Recreation, Civil War), who’s talented, demanding, and also kind of a dick. Then there’s Arthur (Lukas Gage, The White Lotus, Euphoria), her equally dickish coworker who manages to be both obnoxious and deeply weird.

And somehow, Jill’s dating life is even worse.

There’s Scott (Spencer Lord, The Last of Us), who shows up to a date with a raging case of pink eye and apparently believes the idea that pink eye is contagious is some kind of Big Pharma conspiracy.

Sir. No.

Then there’s Tyler (Toby Sandeman, The Royals), a British relationship expert with a whole platform built around teaching people how to have healthy relationships . . . who is also, as it turns out, a fuckboi. Because of course he is.

And somewhere in the middle of all this foolishness, Jill gives us the line:

“My face is a butthole.”

Which may or may not have become a new stim for me. Time will tell.

The thing is, these dates and work stories aren’t just there to give us funny side plots while Jill grieves. They’re exactly the kind of shit she would’ve told Isabelle about.

So she does.

She keeps calling her sister’s number and leaving voicemails.

Some are funny. Some are just random updates about her day. Some are the kind of rambling stories you tell the one person who already knows all the backstory, so you don’t have to stop every five seconds and explain who somebody is.

And some are a lot sadder.

Jill knows Isabelle isn’t going to answer. She isn’t confused about what happened. She just hasn’t figured out how to stop having a relationship with somebody she’s had one with for almost her entire life.

So those voicemails become this little space where, for a few minutes, she can still be Isabelle’s big sister instead of the person everybody expects to eventually “move on.”

There’s just one tiny problem:

Isabelle’s phone number doesn’t belong to Isabelle anymore.

Unfortunately for Jill, Isabelle’s number now belongs to some random guy in Texas

It belongs to Wes (Nick Robinson, Love, Simon, The Kings of Summer), who gets Isabelle’s old number as his new work cell.

At first, he does what any normal person would do when some random woman keeps leaving very personal voicemails for somebody who clearly isn’t him.

He’s going to tell her she has the wrong number.

Except . . . he doesn’t.

Because Jill is funny. She’s witty. She tells a good story. And before long, Wes has gone from accidentally hearing one voicemail to lowkey looking forward to the next episode of What the Hell Happened to Jill Today?

At first, he doesn’t even realize Isabelle is dead. He just assumes Jill has a sister who is REALLY bad about returning phone calls.

Then one of the voicemails gets a little less funny and a lot more vulnerable, and suddenly it clicks.

These aren’t messages to a sister who’s ignoring her.

Jill is talking to someone she lost.

And this probably would’ve been a great time for Wes to finally send that “Hey, you’ve got the wrong number” text.

Instead, my guy goes a little Edward Cullen.

Wes figures out who Jill is, finds out she lives in San Francisco, and uses his job as an excuse to get himself sent there while he works on closing a deal.

Again . . . Edward Cullen.

And I KNOW how this sounds.

Because if some random man listened to a bunch of your private thoughts, tracked you down across the country, and then conveniently popped up in your life, there’s a very good chance your friends would be helping you file a restraining order instead of planning the wedding.

But Nick Robinson somehow plays Wes with enough sweetness and awkwardness that you’re sitting there side-eyeing his methods while still kinda rooting for him.

Then Wes gets his first taste of what Jill is actually like in person.

He spots her at a live taping of Tyler’s (Toby Sandeman, The Royals) dating podcast, Love Not Actually.

Tyler has built an entire brand around selling women advice about accountability, communication, and being proactive in their dating lives . . . after ghosting Jill when she thought they’d actually made a connection.

So Jill crashes the taping and publicly calls him out on his bullshit.

And it is GLORIOUS. (Sorry, Hugh Grant)

Up until now, Wes has only known Jill through these voicemails she thought she was leaving for Isabelle. Now he gets to see that the funny, witty, take-no-shit woman he’s been getting attached to is VERY much the same person in real life.

And conveniently, Jill verbally lighting British Relationship Guru Ken on fire gives Wes the perfect opportunity to finally “run into” her.

From there, he starts using his dating cheat codes (aka all the intel he’s gathered from listening to her voicemails) to get his foot in the door.

Which is where this whole thing starts getting a little more morally questionable.

The longer Wes waits, the worse this gets

Once Jill and Wes actually start spending time together, they’re cute as hell.

They have chemistry. He pays attention to her. He seems to get her in a way that feels refreshing. Especially after Pink Eye Guy and Mr. Love Not Actually.

Except WE know why he gets her so well.

Wes has heard things Jill never chose to tell him. He knows the stories she tells when she thinks she’s talking privately to her sister. He’s heard her vent about work, talk about men she’s dated, make jokes, get vulnerable, and say things you normally don’t hand over to somebody you’ve just met.

So every time he remembers some little detail or says exactly the right thing, there’s still that little voice in the back of your head going “Okay, that’s cute . . . but you already knew that about her.”

And Jill has NO idea.

Wes’s friends Andy (Harry Shum Jr., Glee, Crazy Rich Asians) and Breeda (Leah McKendrick, Scrambled) know about the voicemails . . . and that Jill is completely oblivious that anyone is actually listening to them. Let alone WES.

And once it becomes obvious that he’s genuinely fallen for her, they keep telling him the same thing: he has to come clean.

Because at this point, it’s gone way past “I probably should’ve told her she had the wrong number.”

Now Jill trusts him. She’s falling for him too. And every day he waits makes the truth harder to tell and a whole lot worse when she eventually finds out.

So you see him trying to work up the nerve.

Then chickening out.

Then trying again.

And meanwhile, his friends are basically standing there like “Sir. Please stop making this worse.”

Because there is absolutely no version of this where Jill finds out and goes “Awwww, you secretly listened to all the voicemails I thought I was leaving for my dead sister and used them to get to know me before we even met? That’s so romantic.”

This is a ticking time bomb.

And everybody knows it except Jill.

The movie knows exactly when to twist the knife

The whole time Jill and Wes are getting closer, there’s this giant secret sitting between them that only one of them knows about.

So even when they’re being cute as hell, there’s still this little bit of anxiety underneath it because you KNOW Wes can’t keep avoiding that conversation forever.

And once everything starts catching up with him, the movie doesn’t stop at one emotional gut punch.

There are a couple of moments in that final stretch that genuinely hurt to watch, including one involving Isabelle that made me feel like Jill was losing her sister all over again.

That one WRECKED me.

Things at work are coming to a head too. Jill has spent all this time dealing with Chef Bastien’s bullshit, putting in the work, and trying to prove herself, only to reach a point where she has to really think about how much longer she’s willing to accept being undervalued.

So suddenly, it’s not just about what happens with Wes or how she’s coping with losing Isabelle.

Jill has to figure out what she actually wants her life to look like now.

What does she want from love? What does she want from her career? How much of herself is she willing to keep giving to people and places that aren’t giving her what she needs back? And probably the hardest one . . . how does she keep loving Isabelle without feeling like moving forward means she’s leaving her behind?

It gets messy. It gets painful. And there were several moments where I was sitting there like “Damn. Can this woman catch ONE break?”

But none of it felt like the movie was just throwing terrible shit at Jill so we’d cry harder. It all serves a purpose. Everything she’s dealing with forces her to decide what comes next.

And by the time we get to the end, all those pieces come together in a way that’s funny, romantic, bittersweet, and responsible for me crying over that damn Robyn song AGAIN.

Which brings me to the most important question for an actual review: Was Voicemails for Isabelle any good?

Very much so.

Final verdict

Voicemails for Isabelle is streaming now on Netflix.

 

Tiffany is a single WAHM and geek who lives in SmallTown, Arkansas, with her teenage son (who is annoyingly giant-like, towering over her even though she’s 5’9″ and very much an Amazon) and their black cat, Berlioz (the doggiest cat you’d ever meet).

She has worked from home full-time since 2012 as a (according to one client) Word Alchemist. Alas, someone else already claimed that title, so she goes by The Geeky Copywriter.

Tiffany is on a mission to do this whole marketing thing in a way that doesn’t just sound good — it feels good. She helps others use their voice to connect with their audience and grow their business authentically.

She works primarily with female coaches and course creators, helping them ditch pushy, salesy tactics in favor of ick-free, personality-filled copy that converts.

When she’s not crafting words that make an impact, Tiffany can be found hanging out with her son, geeking out over different fandoms, quoting Harry Potter like it’s a second language, or cycling through a wide array of creative hobbies.

You can learn more about her on her blog, Single Mommy Warrior, as well as her business website, The Geeky Copywriter.