'Voicemails for Isabelle' Is The Rare Rom-Com That Actually Gets Modern Dating (And Even Grief)

Editor's note: This article may contain spoilers about the film.

A good rom-com's hard to come by. So, once in a while, when it comes, we need to tell everyone about it. Cue: Voicemails for Isabelle.

Netflix recently released the film starring Zoey Deutch (Set It Up) and Nick Robinson (Love, Simon), and TLDR? It's the kind of rom-com that we badly need today. It's simply just captivating and surprisingly uncomplicated.

The story is about Jill (Zoey), who's navigating the loss of her sister, Isabelle, by sending voicemails to her sister's phone number—only to find the number had been reassigned to Wes's (Nick) work number.

There are so many layers to the film, other than it being potentially tagged as quote and unquote, "a sick reboot of You've Got Mail." (Disclaimer: This was explicitly mentioned in the film!) I, for one, watched it for the rom-com, but definitely got more than that.

Voicemails for Isabelle gets a lot of things right about grief, modern dating, and rom-coms—and for that, we're putting this high in our list of all-time fave films.

We knew the film would make us cry, but Jill and Isabelle's sisterhood still hit harder than expected. I still get goosebumps trying to reminisce about—and put into words—how beautifully the film portrayed their connection.

Props to Zoey and Ciara Bravo (Isabelle) for bringing the characters to life so well. People were already bawling within the first 15 minutes because of them. Their bond felt inseparable, even with Isabelle confined to her room because of the big C disease we all hate.

Their connection never faltered—it only grew stronger through their daily calls, with Jill sharing everything from work horror stories to terrible date nights with awful men. Isabelle listened to every story and supported Jill through it all… until she couldn't anymore.

The film beautifully showed that moving on after losing a loved one is never a linear process. Grief isn’t always dramatic or obvious—it doesn’t always look like crying until there are no tears left or isolating yourself from the world. More often than not, grief looks like showing up to work every day, trying to put yourself back out there, going on dates, or even sampling every kind of bagel you can find. It quietly exists in the small, ordinary moments of life as we learn how to move forward while still holding on to the people we've lost.

In a Cosmopolitan Philippines exclusive interview with Zoey and Nick, Zoey shared that one of the most challenging parts of portraying Jill was navigating the sadness her character carried throughout the film. After all, the cast and crew had the delicate task of making the audience feel the weight of that grief while still preserving the humor woven into each scene. Balancing those emotional extremes was essential in bringing the story to life.

"I probably pushed all ways for her to be more sad. And Leah (McKendrick) [the director] was wonderful in helping me navigate and kind of modulate those moments. I don't think human beings can feel one emotion for more than 30 seconds; it's like you switch. You just don't feel one emotion for an entire movie. But I probably leaned into the sadness more than I needed to. And so, that was a little bit challenging," the actress told Cosmo.

The way the film explored grief in its earlier moments resonated deeply with audiences, even for those who may not have experienced losing a sibling or a loved one yet. It captured the reality that grief has a way of quietly creeping into our everyday lives, lingering in even the most ordinary moments long after loss itself.

Voicemails for Isabelle also mirrors the chaotic reality of today's dating pool. Not to sound pessimistic about modern romance—just honest. Going on countless dates with random men can make dating feel both exciting and exhausting at the same time, and that's one of the things the film gets so right.

"A lot of my friends are single, and hearing their horror stories and how hard it is to date right now, you know? It's interesting because you would think that with all the access and all these different opportunities to kind of expand your network with our phones, you would think there would be more options, and it would be easier, but that has not been the case. I think it does get it right [in that aspect]. Also, how comical some bad dates are," Zoey shared.

Throughout the film, Jill constantly tells Isabelle how badly she wants to find someone who feels like one of them—someone who understands their taste, their quirks, and the little things they care about. Someone who sees beyond surface-level attraction and actually gets her.

Then came Wes. He wasn't just intrigued by Jill—he was genuinely drawn to her, and not because of her "sexy chipmunk" cheeks, smile, or figure. What pulled him in was the raw, unfiltered look into her life after losing Isabelle. For someone who struggled to open up and be honest about his own feelings, Jill's vulnerability made him fall hard.

"I think one of the things that is so attractive to Wes is that this is an unfiltered look at someone's interior life. This is someone being completely honest. And I think honesty is something that's kinda lacking in his life," Nick shared.

And honestly, that part hits. Wes was clearly fascinated by Jill because she represented a kind of emotional openness he didn't have himself. But the film also never lets viewers forget just how unsettling his actions actually were. After all, in real life, it would be creepy to date someone who had secretly listened to all your voicemails to your dead sister.

What worked was that the film acknowledged that discomfort early on instead of romanticizing it completely. There was no pretending that Wes' behavior was fully acceptable, and even Nick admitted that balancing those "stalker" undertones with the film's humor was one of the trickiest parts of playing the character.

"For Wes, he is falling for this person from afar—so, [I was] trying to strike this tone between being infatuated but also not being a 'stalker' essentially. Trying to strike that balance, [then] finding the comedy," Nick said while laughing.

Going back to post-Jill and Wes's fallout, Wes was definitely back to his sad-boy image, to which Nick noted, "I think he's used to having the kind of shallow, curated, online relationships that are surface-level, and this is the opposite. Getting a real glimpse of someone’s personality and humor, and just their inner thought process, is intoxicating [for Wes]."

Instead of Wes just leaning towards knowing Jill through her voicemails, he decided to get to know her better through their dates. And although he lied about the voicemails, it's just a good note for people in the dating pool nowadays to take the time and get to know each other beyond our screens or what we see on social media.

Your conversations, whether online or offline, and sexual connection are equally important. With that, Jill and Wes' connection in the film says how easy it is to fall in love with the right person.

Another thing that earned Voicemails for Isabelle a big nod from us is how it emphasizes the importance of human connection, especially in the midst of grief and healing.

Even without Isabelle ever responding to her voicemails, Jill carries her memory into every aspect of her life. And while her parents gave her the freedom to discover the world on her own, they never stopped being a source of support. In the moments when Jill felt most alone, they were there to remind her that she wasn't.

Wes' family life is explored less in the film, aside from the loss of his mother. Yet he finds a family of his own in Breeda and Andy. Like the best friends in many romantic comedies, they serve as his moral compass—offering guidance, calling him out when needed, and encouraging him to make the right choices.

What makes these relationships so meaningful is that they are far more than supporting elements in the story. They reinforce one of the film's most powerful messages: grief and healing are not something we are meant to carry alone. While romance plays an important role, Voicemails for Isabelle reminds us that healing is also found in the love and support of family, friends, and the people who choose to stand by us through life's hardest moments.

A good rom-com is hard to come by these days, and Voicemails for Isabelle proves why the genre still works when done right.

It leaves a mark on anyone grieving the loss of a loved one, struggling to open up in their relationships, forgiving someone who lied to them, searching for the person who will make them believe in love again, or simply trying to move forward despite life's setbacks.

As Zoey put it, you don't walk away from this film feeling just one emotion. Voicemails for Isabelle takes you through the full spectrum of human experience: the weight of grief, the warmth of sisterly love, the comfort of friendship, the excitement of getting to know someone new, the frustrations of figuring out your career, and the liberating feeling of starting over. Ultimately, it leaves you with a sense of hope and contentment—the feeling that comes when we find our own Isabelle or Wes in life.

In its ending scene, Voicemails for Isabelle reiterates that moving forward doesn't mean leaving parts of ourselves behind or forgetting the people we've loved. Instead, it means carrying them with us—through our memories, our choices, and the lives we continue to build. Because those we've lost never truly stop being part of our story.

Voicemails for Isabelle is now streaming on Netflix.

Catch the full video of our Cosmo Exclusive interview with Zoey Deutch and Nick Robinson on Cosmopolitan Philippines' YouTube channel soon!