Vacation Friends Can’t Quite Make It in the Real World

Vacations differ for everyone—some people want a relaxing time away from reality with pool days and spa visits, while others want to escape reality completely and let their alter egos take over for a trip filled with debauchery and bad decisions.
The new Hulu film Vacation Friends takes the latter to another level. After Marcus (Lil Rel Howery) and Emily’s (Yvonne Orji) romantic trip to Mexico is derailed by a flooded honeymoon suite, the wild couple upstairs, Ron and Kyla (John Cena and Meredith Hagner), offer to house them in their Presidential Suite and quickly coax them into shedding their buttoned-up personas. A few cocaine-rimmed margaritas and a crashed yacht later, the couples are bonded for life (or at least, for the rest of their trip). Back in the real world, Marcus and Emily think they’ll never see Ron and Kyla ever again…until they show up to their Atlanta wedding, baby bump in tow.
As these comedies generally are, Vacation Friends is over the top. Cena and Hagner get to have all of the fun as chaotic characters who think extreme pranks are the basis of any good friendship. They don’t have any real backstory to speak of, which adds to the charm of the premise: There are some people you meet and immediately question their entire existence, and Ron and Kyla are just that. We don’t know how they have exorbitant amounts of money or where they live or even what exactly they do for work, but we know that they’re here and they’re ready to have a good time.
Howery gets to play the straight man, either questioning every one of Ron and Kyla’s decisions while on vacation or trying to win over a father-in-law that dislikes him at his own wedding. When he does have fun—like taking accidental drugs or playing a high-stakes round of golf—he goes all in, and it shows the character has dimension. In those moments, Marcus has a light-hearted side and is able to let go of the reins for a bit, which adds depth and allows audiences to genuinely root for him.