We are surrounded in life by zones; time zones, danger zones, no parking zones, but one of the most precarious is the friendship zone.

It can often be the bookend to a relationship; a comfortable jumping off point, and then a finale, that can often be a mixture of frustration and disappointment for at least one person, if not all concerned.

This Netflix original hangs out for a prolonged period in said friend zone, capturing the often uncertainty of it all.

Getting an invitation for a wedding, especially in a different country, can be a real event to look forward to. Not so for Poppy (Emily Bader); although she’s a travel writer, her invite to a wedding in Barcelona causes her mass anxiety. This is due to Alex (Tom Blyth) also being there, as the brother to one of the grooms.

They have known each other for many years, and have spent many vacations together, which have gone some way to defining their relationship, firm friends, but also more than that.

She decides she will attend, which allows her to face her past, and reveal just how it all began, as well as how they got the point of uncertainty that they’re at now.

Brett Haley is somewhat of a journeyman as a director; he appears to direct with one colour in mind – beige, making a number of truly forgettable flicks. The American director has seemingly found a home at Netflix, with this being his third film in a row for the kings of streaming.

It’s based on Emily Henry’s 2021 romance novel of the same name, offering a pseudo dissection of a relationship over a period of a number of years.

It flits from present day to various vacation flashbacks that show how the relationship has grown. It shows great signs in the early stages, like any real relationship can, but does the same as many of those do by fizzling out after the initial honeymoon period wears off.

One of the first main issues is its length, at just shy of two hours. As a self-confessed rom-com, there’s just not enough substance to the script to support that run time. Its narrative has an identity crisis, which is probably down the fact that three people have been credited as having written the screenplay, and none of whom include the novel’s author.

Its fresh-faced leads Bader and Blyth – who would make a great lawyers company – are an amiable pair, with pleasing screen chemistry, but their storyline is uneven and inconsistent, despite leading to a pretty obvious ending.

Haley is uncomfortable with gear changing, with the comedic scenes too sporadic, before going AWOL around the halfway mark. It’s then that it grinds into sincere territory, which isn’t handled particularly well, and may well test the attention span of those watching it, and come off worse for it.

Where it fails the most, is in the trajectory of the relationship itself; the flashbacks are in chronological order over a period of nine years, seeing the pair spend quality time on vacation together. It builds to the moment where they eventually do become a couple, and then completely ignores it; through this timeline we never see them as anything other than friends, which is misleading to not only them, but us too. It spends two long hours building the foundation to a relationship, and then shows the rubble left afterwards, without showing any of the solidity of being couple at all. The result is a befuddled attempt at a rom-com.

It’s a shame as it showed potential, mostly due to the keenness of its two leads to please, but ultimately goes the way of many a relationship, by fading into nothingness without much warning.

It acts much like being put in the friends zone yourself, if you want more, the chances are you’ll end up in a world of disappointment.