SPOILER ALERT: This story contains spoilers for “Voicemails for Isabelle,” now streaming on Netflix.
Netflix’s latest rom-com hit, “Voicemails for Isabelle,” landed on the streamer last Friday following nearly eight years of changes on its road to the screen, including screenwriter Leah McKendrick taking over as director. Among the biggest switches made to the script since stars Zoey Deutch (“Something From Tiffany’s”) and Nick Robinson (“Love, Simon”) first read it was a key factor in the overall plot: just how much Wes (Robinson) attempted to tell Jill (Deutch) he was receiving the intimate voicemails she was leaving for her late sister, Isabelle (Ciara Bravo).
It’s a rom-com mishap that leads to a meet-cute and an eventual happily ever after, but one that relied on the audience really believing Wes was not some monster who was using the situation (him being assigned Isabelle’s old phone number and Jill continuing to call and leave messages when he didn’t set up an outgoing message) to trick Jill into falling for him. To make that point very clear, writer and director McKendrick says she was inserting more moments indicating his good intentions throughout production on “Voicemails for Isabelle.”
