Exclusive Interview

‘Voicemails for Isabelle’ Director Unpacks the Ending & Cameo You May Have Missed

Believe it or not, Leah McKendrick had to fight for the opening and the ending of Voicemails for Isabelle. 

Two different kinds of love stories are in conversation with each other in Netflix’s latest rom-com, which McKendrick wrote, directed, and starred in. First is the deep bond between Jill (Zoey Deutch) and her sister (Ciara Bravo), who has cystic fibrosis. Isabelle has always been at the center of Jill’s life, even after Jill moved to San Francisco to pursue her dream of becoming a baker. In the aftermath of Izzy’s death, Jill starts calling her sister’s old number, leaving voicemails about her chaotic dating life. Little does she know that Isabelle’s number was reassigned to Austin-based real estate agent Wes (Nick Robinson), who quickly becomes invested in Jill’s stories. She’s his dream girl, so he sets out to win her over before he tells her that he’s been on the receiving end of her calls. (Warning: Voicemails for Isabelle spoilers ahead.)

McKendrick wanted to make a love story that paid homage to sisters everywhere — her “true love” is her own little sister, who was the inspiration for the movie — so it was only natural to have the film begin with Jill and Isabelle as children. A tween Jill rushes home to tell her sister about her first kiss with a boy at school. She gets suspended for punching said boy when he insults her sister. From there, we see Jill call Izzy, who’s in the hospital, when their favorite song — Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own”—  comes on at the school dance. Then, we see 17-year-old Jill rush home to spend New Year’s with her sister before landing in the present day, just before Izzy’s death.

“I think if I’m proud of anything about my movie, I’m probably most proud of my opening through time, and it’s because it was something that was that I really fought for that I don’t think made as much sense to people on the page,” McKendrick told Swooon. “I think it seemed like it was so many scenes, and it was like hopping around, and I kept trying to say, ‘It’s the opening of Up. It’s a Robyn music video, but the opening of Up, I’m telling you.'”

The concern was not getting to the love story between Jill and Wes fast enough. “I said, ‘I will cut this a million ways. I promise you, I will make sure that you are happy, but I need my footage. You’ve got to let me shoot my footage, even if we end up cutting it, I got to have it because if this does not work as a love story, that this is her true love and the love of her life, the movie doesn’t work.'”

Before getting into the romance, according to McKendrick, she needed the viewer to understand what a huge loss this was for Jill — and why she’s leaving the voicemails in the first place. “I don’t know that [Netflix executives] totally got it at first, but they let me shoot all of it,” McKendrick said. “And it all stayed, and I think that was a testament to my editors, my music editors, and Netflix, and cutting it, and cutting, and getting it tighter and tighter and tighter, and showing them that it could really move if we got it there.”

Even after the opening, Wes and Jill don’t actually meet until over 45 minutes into the movie, a deviation from most rom-coms that start with the meet-cute. Though neither does 1993’s Sleepless in Seattle, which McKendrick looked to for inspiration. The love interests don’t meet until the last scene of the movie.

“We’ve got some real obstacles, but nobody questions that because it’s one of the greatest movies of all time, I think,” McKendrick explained. “Now, we try to follow more of a formula, and I think it’s probably just because that’s how it’s been done most times, most successfully. But I just went, I promise you, if we are in love with Jill, and we feel for Jill, and we see him falling in love with her, we’re going to be yearning and longing, and the anticipation is building, it’s going to be that much more satisfying when he finally sits on that bench.”

She continued, “I think it was a little scary for everybody, and I think it was a constant push and pull of me really wanting to give that proper real estate and time to Izzy and not breeze through the grief, even though it doesn’t necessarily feel good, especially since we’re in a rom-com, but I felt strongly that we needed to hit it right to understand the hole in her heart.”

Similarly, the movie doesn’t rush Jill and Wes’ reconciliation once the voicemails come to light. Most of the third act is devoted to Jill moving on from the betrayal by following her dreams. When she leaves her terrible prep cook job under a tyrant boss (Nick Offerman), Jill doesn’t spend time wallowing. She gets a food truck business going. All the while, we don’t see what Wes is up to in the aftermath of the reveal until he sets out to get Jill back.

Netflix

“That was a really big source of concern,” McKendrick said of waiting to bring Wes back into the picture. Originally, she did have a scene of Wes leaving a voicemail for Jill during that interim period, but it was ultimately cut after a big debate.

“Oh, and it was so good,” she said. “I wonder if we should put it in deleted scenes or something. He kind of is like, ‘Hey, Jill, how are you?’ She’s just started her food truck, and then he has this moment where he drops in, and he’s like, ‘I should have told you the truth, I should have told you so many times, and I miss you.'”

At the end of the message, Wes has the option of sending or deleting it, and he picks the latter. In addition to the movie already running long, McKendrick said, “I think, ultimately ,we were like, it’s her story. Let’s stay in her world, and hopefully when you see him again on that bench, you have missed him, and you’re excited to see to catch up with him.”

Through a grand gesture and a stellar love confession — which McKendrick said was “wish fulfillment” on her part — Wes and Jill get back together. But that’s not where the story ends. There’s one final scene of Wes leaving a voicemail for Izzy, asking for her permission for him and Jill to move in together. He’s sitting in a park while Jill works at her food truck nearby, leaving her own final voicemail for Izzy.

“This Wes kid, I think he’s a bird like us,” she says before “Dancing on My Own” comes on over the speakers. Jill gets the whole crowd — including Wes — dancing. It’s a full circle moment as she performs the choreography that she created with Izzy when they were kids.

“There was a suggestion of me cutting it at one point, and I said, ‘No way. There’s no way,'” McKendrick said. “Even when I was a very well-behaved studio writer, I was like, ‘There’s no way…’ Somebody had said they thought it was cheesy. I was like, ‘You will have to fire me and find another writer to write you that version. I am not losing Robyn.”

David Astorga / Netflix

“[Jill] always does it, no matter where she is, no matter whether or not Izzy is still alive,” she continued. “That was like one of the early things that I thought of that I was super devoted to, and it’s been in every draft of the script. It’s one of the greatest songs of all time, and Robyn’s one of the greatest artists of all time, and I, as a child, would call the radio station to request her music, and me and my sister just really loved her, so there was nobody but Robyn.”

In the background, for just a moment, Izzy dances to the song with them. “Ciara flew in for the dance sequence, and the sun was going down, and the clock is ticking, and I got her for one take,” McKendrick said of getting that shot. “I’m not really orchestrating all my dancers, I’m kind of wanting them to live free, so there were there wasn’t a ton of footage that had her clearly there, but I also wanted her out of focus because I didn’t want it to be like scary or creepy.”

Related

'Every Year After' Leads Dive Into Sam & Percy's Decade of Yearning

She added, “I wanted it to feel magical. There were some people that did not see her, so we kind of had to play with it, and lighting, and some punching in, and we had to do our best, but I’m so glad you saw her.”

It’s a magical ending to one of the most magical rom-coms we’ve seen in years. Naturally, we had to ask if McKendrick had any plans to return to the genre.

“Yeah, girl, I’m never gonna stop making rom-coms as long as they’ll let me,” she said. “And let’s be honest, they don’t even need to let me. I’ll make my own rom-coms, even if they won’t let me. I love rom-coms. I will always be doing this, and I will make a whole variety of them, and I can’t wait.”

Voicemails for Isabelle, Streaming Now, Netflix