«"I'm here to make films, not write scripts," director Leah Mackendrick told IndieWire.
It's the kind of hard-won wisdom that seems obvious until you seriously consider the person and their career. For the writer and director of Netflix's new romantic comedy, "Voice Letters for Isabelle," which opens Friday, June 19, reaching this conclusion took eight years, a global pandemic, multiple industry strikes, countless rewrites, and the long, often painful process of transforming a deeply personal script into the mainstream.
«"I realized it wasn't profitable for me to be endlessly and blindly committed to a script that would never be made into a film," Mackendrick said. "I could either stick with this script to the end, or I could make the film.".
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Straightforward yet powerful advice is at the heart of Voice Messages for Isabel, a film about overworked chef Jill (Zoey Deutch) trying to rebuild her life after the sudden loss of her younger sister to a chronic illness. When a series of heartwarming messages intended for the late Isabel begin to reach a stranger (Nick Robinson), Jill finds herself drawn into an unexpected relationship reminiscent of the anonymous connections in classics like You've Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle.
Mackendrick's third feature, shot in the director's style, contains all the expected delights of the romantic comedy genre—grand gestures, disastrous misunderstandings, and a charming (read: deeply misguided) protagonist—but its emotional core beats elsewhere. Behind the plot of "Vocal Messages for Isabelle" lies a story about family, grief, memory, and the relationships that help us get through the hardest times.
«"First and foremost, I'm inspired by my love for my little sister, Olivia," Mackendrick said, quickly clarifying that her biological sister is "alive, well, and thriving." "Really, it was the love of sisterhood that inspired me, and I realized how hard it is to find that in this world.".
This sentiment runs deeper than just the film's title and underlies much of Mackendrick's work. Long before she began directing for Netflix, Mackendrick was an aspiring writer and actress in Los Angeles who regularly called her sister in New York to get through tough times. She lamented failed auditions, bad dates, and the feeling that her professional and personal dreams might never come true.
«"Because of the time difference, she'd sometimes be asleep, and I'd leave her long voicemails," McKendrick recalls. "Sometimes I'd just cry and tell her about a date or a job I didn't get. I remember feeling like this city didn't want me. I only dreamed of being here and didn't feel like I was achieving anything.".
These experiences formed the basis for the film "Voice Messages for Isabel." But, as with many of Mackendrick's works, the autobiography was only the starting point. The most vivid illustration of the film's role in Mackendrick's creative development came just a few hours before our interview.
Earlier that morning, Mackendrick had met with Shonda Rhimes—a striking coincidence that didn't escape her notice, but required explanation in conversation. When Mackendrick first wrote "Voice Messages for Isabel" eight years ago, it was very different. Jill wasn't a chef, but a screenwriter working on an all-male team—she dreamed of working at Shondaland. In fact, in the original ending, Jill literally runs into Rhimes in the elevator before her big moment.
«"[My character] was on this CW show where all the men were telling her what menstruation was and what labor was like when you give birth," Mackendrick recalls. "But her dream was to get into Shonda Rhimes' world. And then I finally got to meet Shonda. It was just incredible. It all came full circle.".
This version of "Voice Messages for Isabel" may forever remain a fantasy, but McKendrick's recent meeting with Rhimes was very real. The Hollywood titan of near-mythical proportions, creator of "Grey's Anatomy," "Scandal," and many other series, according to the director, met with McKendrick to discuss a potential future collaboration. And this anecdote isn't just interesting to McKendrick; it also reveals something important about her unique talent as a director.
In films as diverse as the revenge thriller "MFA," the fertility comedy "Scrambled," and now the major Netflix romance series, Mackendrick has built a career on distilling deeply personal female experiences into accessible genre stories. Whether exploring sexual assault, anxiety over reproductive health, or the fierce defense of an older sister left at home, her work is unified not so much by style or theme as by perspective. At one point, Mackendrick reluctantly called herself "the Taylor Swift of cinema.".
«"I remember Frida Kahlo's words: 'I am my own muse,'" she explained. "If I continually draw inspiration from the pain, confusion, triumph, uncertainty, and difficulties women face today, then I know that everything that happens on screen is real and true.".
Comparing Mackendrick to Swift might seem like a playful nod to her supposedly feminine appeal as a screenwriter and director. But listening to her recount her multifaceted film career, it becomes clear that Mackendrick, like Rimes and Swift, understands, above all, the exceptional commercial power of the specific. Going beyond self-expression, Mackendrick has set herself the goal of mastering the art of transforming personal experience into universality.
«"The cure for shame, or the antidote to shame, is empathy," she said. "And this is coming from a girl who spent a lot of time in her bedroom, feeling very alien and alone at times. I think all of this, each film, is my own antidote to my shame.".
This philosophy may explain why viewers so often recognize themselves in Mackendrick's work.
«"The biggest compliment I've ever received in my work is when people message me privately and say, 'We're the same person,'" she said. "'We understand each other. I see you, you see me, and there's a real exchange.' It's a special feeling.".
Paradoxically, maintaining this sense of authenticity becomes significantly more difficult as independent filmmakers enter the wider studio and streaming market. Although Mackendrick premiered her films "MFA" and "Scrambled" at SXSW, she wrote the screenplay for "Voice Letters for Isabelle" almost ten years ago and sold it remarkably quickly.
«"I thought, 'Wow, being a screenwriter is so easy,'" Mackendrick said. "'They're just going to pay me a ton of money, I have a movie star and a famous director, and now I'm just going to go make a movie.'".
Reality turned out to be more complex.
«"I didn't have thick skin," she admitted. "Because so much of my work is so self-referential, at first I felt like I was losing a piece of myself." Ultimately, this process forced Mackendrick to confront a question familiar to many independent storytellers: how do you make a larger, more commercial film without sacrificing the qualities that made people fall in love with you in the first place?
«"There were times when I thought that going through this would make me lose myself," she said. "But that never happened.".
Instead, the increasingly experienced screenwriter and director discovered that authorship was less about protecting plot details and more about the emotions behind them.
«"You can leave it as is," she said. "But you can't make this movie. It doesn't work that way.".
This maturity is evident throughout Voice Letters for Isabelle. It's a surprisingly complex film that understands the core mechanics of the Netflix romantic comedy without allowing them to obscure the honesty that made Mackendrick the filmmaker she is today. And the relationship viewers are invited to invest in while watching isn't so much the sweet encounter between Robinson and Deutch as it is the unspoken connection Mackendrick's audience shares with her, whether they know it or not.
«"My younger sister, my two younger cousins, Nina and Sheila, and I—they're my 'little brothers,'" Mackendrick said with a laugh, explaining one of the film's most memorable characteristics. "That's what we call each other. Brothers.".
This kind of bold intimacy permeates the script, helping to distinguish Mackendrick's "lovers' album" from the more generic romantic films advertised on streaming platforms.
«"When I watch movies and hear the voices of the performers I love—'Notting Hill,' 'Sleepless in Seattle,' Nancy Meyers, Nora Ephron—it seems to me that romantic comedies can be so elevated, so character-driven, and so expressive," she said. "I think we sometimes lose sight of that, and it all comes down to concept, cliché, or premise.".
One of the funniest moments in Voice Messages for Isabelle comes when Mackendrick plays Robinson's girlfriend (actually played by Tom Hanks in her film), who directly confirms what many viewers will already be thinking: this guy's behavior is really, ..., Very strange.
But rather than undermine the romantic comedy genre, Mackendrick brilliantly demonstrates how deeply she understands the subgenre. She loves the language of cinema too much to mock it, and instead elegantly analyzes the genre's shortcomings from within.
That same confidence extends to her collaboration with Deutch. "She's the best of the best," Mackendrick said. "I think she's one of the best people to ever do this.".
The final film reveals the admiration between Mackendrick and Deutch, as well as the lesson that made their collaboration possible: Films can be much bigger than those who create them, and that's truly hard to swallow.
In an interview with IndieWire, Mackendrick also spoke enthusiastically about writing and directing the upcoming Shania Twain biopic ("It's the most surreal experience," she said) and praised the support she received from horror heavyweights like James Wan while working on last year's I Know What You Did Last Summer. However, "I don't want to look down the mountain right now," Mackendrick said, noting that she also recently married cinematographer A.J. Mester. "I want to keep climbing.".
It's another simple statement, but it's remarkably fitting for the current stage of Mackendrick's career. Working on a Christmas movie for Netflix and dreaming of an action project, she no longer sounds like a budding director. She sounds like someone preparing for a much bigger gig.
«"Honestly, I just want to make movies until the day I die," Mackendrick concluded.
That's why the release of Voice Messages for Isabelle feels surprisingly precious. Not because it represents the culmination of its creator's ambitions, but because it perhaps captures the very moment before those plans were realized. In this sense, like the recordings that form the basis of her film, Mackendrick's third feature seems destined to become a memorable possession.
Netflix's Voice Messages for Isabelle will begin streaming on Friday, June 19.