Voicemails for Isabelle, written and directed by Leah McKendrick, is not an “indie film” by any stretch. So this is basically looking at a mainstream Hollywood rom-com through a cynical indie lens. Be forewarned: if you’re a diehard fan of mainstream rom-coms, you probably won’t appreciate this perspective.

Voicemails for Isabelle movie is unapologetically a throwback to 90s romcoms and even shamelessly names them -You’ve Got Mail is an obvious example, and the similarities go beyond the fact that both movies deal with communication tools. The whole movie has a 90s-era mentality with a Gen-Z cast and soundtrack.

A Tragic Premise for a Comedy

For a romcoms, Voicemails for Isabelle has a heavy premise. It’s not really a spoiler to point out that a key character dies early on. Jill (Zoey Deutch) and Isabelle (Ciara Bravo) are sisters who are exceptionally close. Isabelle, stricken with cystic fibrosis since childhood, succumbs to the illness just as Jill is trying to establish herself as a chef in San Francisco. Distraught, Jill leaves voicemails to her deceased sister. The unlikely contrivance of the movie is that Isabelle’s phone number is quickly picked up by Wes (Nick Robinson), a young Austin real estate agent who listens to these voicemails.

Rather than message Jill back and tell her the mistake, he just listens in fascination. Nick arranges to visit San Francisco for work and basically stalks Jill (cute rom-com style stalking of course).

Jill, aside from her grieving, is dealing with a nightmarish work scenario where she’s harassed by a colleague she made the mistake of sleeping with, and harangued by an over-the-top mean chef boss. Her job of cutting kumquats for desserts doesn’t seem destined to help her achieve her dream of becoming a baker.

Her dating life outside of work is no better as she hooks up with a charming podcast host who summarily dumps her. When she confronts him at a public event, Wes is hiding in the audience.

I thought it would be fun to go down the list of rom-com cliches that this one hits.

Cute Stalking

Wes listening in on these ultra-personal voicemails eventually outrages Jill but is ultimately not a deal-breaker. Voicemails for Isabelle is hardly the only romcom where borderline stalkerish actions are passed off as harmless and comical.

Job From Hell

Jill’s job is a distinct compartment in the film that’s like a mini sitcom of its own. The restaurant scenes, no doubt inspired by reality shows like Hell’s Kitchen, with a tyrannical Chef Bastien (Nick Offerman) who has a fake French accent and mercilessly bullies the staff.  While the humor is very broad and over-the-top, it does establish Jill as a person with a real job while many romcoms just have people checking into generic offices every now and then to show they are employed.

San Francisco, as in a Postcard

This is a postcard version of San Francisco complete with trolley cars and pristine parks, with nary a homeless person or even a scrap of litter visible anywhere. Jill has no hesitation about sitting on a lonely bench at night in a public area. Wes first approaches her at her favorite bench and Jill has no worries about any potential danger. We even get to hear I Left My Heart in San Francisco, famously sung by Tony Bennett in the early 1960s, when the city ( and nation) were at the peak of mid-20th century prosperity and optimism.

Everyone’s Rich (or at least comfortable)

Jill, a fledgling prep cook, lives in what must be a $3,000 apartment and doesn’t even have roommates. When she faces a career crisis, her parents hand her a six-figure check to start over. This money doesn’t come out of nowhere and is connected to Isabelle, but still, no one in this kind of movie ever has to deal with serious anxiety about daily living.

90s-era Neo-liberalism

The 90s -at least the mid-to-late years of that decade- were an optimistic time in America. The internet and dot com boom were just getting started. Crime was down in big cities and jobs were plentiful. A prosperous tech-fueled future seemed inevitable and gentrification was mostly celebrated. Nowhere was this more evident than in You’ve Got Mail (1998). Here, Tom Hanks’ character is basically a corporate raider for a bookstore chain that swallows up smaller stores, such as the one owned by love interest Meg Ryan.

The unwritten neo-liberal aesthetic is that predatory economic behavior is fine as long as you’re nice about it. Wes openly aspires to be Tom Hanks, just as the entire movie blatantly embodies this 90s reality of giddy capitalism. There are intimations that Wes, with the help of a hacker pal at work, indulges in some less than ethical machinations to get leads. But, like Hanks, he’s charming and comes across like a nice guy, so it’s all good.

Who is it For?

Cultural criticism aside, Voicemails for Isabelle isn’t a terrible movie. The relationship between the sisters is touching and this is the area where the movie distinguishes itself. The problem is, this is a fairly heavy topic that doesn’t quite sync with all the romcom tropes.

I’d mainly recommend Voicemails for Isabelle if you are feeling nostalgic for 90s romcoms.