Director Leah McKendrick feared that the final full-circle moment in her hit new Netflix romance, Voicemails for Isabelle, might come off as “creepy” to viewers.
Released last week, the romcom stars Zoey Deutch as aspiring baker Jill, who leaves voice messages for her late sister, Isabelle (Ciara Bravo), unaware that the phone number now belongs to Wes (Nick Robinson), a real estate agent, who sets out to find her.
*Warning: potential spoilers for the ending of Voicemails for Isabelle to follow*
In the film’s final scene, after Jill and Wes have reconnected following a fallout over Wes’s failure to reveal that he had already learned intimate details about her life from listening to the voicemails, Wes gathers the courage to ask Jill to move in together.
Sitting on the lawn outside Jill’s food truck, Wes leaves a voicemail for Isabelle, asking her to send a sign of approval. As Jill approaches Wes, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” — her and Isabelle’s anthem — begins to play from a nearby speaker.
Jill excitedly runs to the center of the field, beckoning strangers to dance as she performs the choreographed routine she shared with her sister earlier in the film. At one point, the camera briefly pans to show Isabelle dancing behind Jill.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, McKendrick admitted she was initially hesitant to include the blink-and-you-miss-it Easter egg.
“I could totally ruin my movie in this last moment, or it could be so epic,” she said of the subtle callback. “We were calibrating that ‘till the end to make sure that you could, in fact, see her, but also that it didn’t feel spoon-feedy and creepy and weird.”
She shared that she hoped “people are like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, was that..?’ And then they rewind it,” adding that the cameo was intended to make audiences feel like they were “getting a glimpse into almost like another realm.”
Despite McKendrick’s concerns, fans have instead found the moment beautiful and emotional.
“I noticed izzy the first time i watched the movie. Then i saw her i cried so much, she came back for one last dance with her sister,” one person wrote on X, while a second said that they “started sobbing again” after seeing the clip.
“I hadn’t noticed and now I’m feeling even worse,” another commented.
McKendrick is pleased with the positive response, telling Entertainment Weekly, “I’m so glad it didn’t feel creepy, and it’s really satisfying to see all the edits of people pointing it out.”
Voicemails for Isabelle is out now on Netflix.
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