Este Haim is being celebrated for her artistic vulnerability and emotional openness, using her personal health struggles to create authentic, meaningful art that resonates with audiences dealing with similar challenges.
Sources close to the project say the scoring sessions were emotionally intense, with both composers openly weeping during playback. One insider notes Haim was particularly affected by themes of chronic illness and sisterly devotion, calling it her most personal work yet.
Voicemails for Isabelle premieres June 19 on Netflix. The film took director Leah McKendrick eight years to develop. Haim revealed she has Type 1 diabetes, Hashimoto's disease, and neuropathy that her sisters Danielle and Alana help manage daily.
When art imitates life too closely, the results can be devastating โ or transformative. For Haim, scoring this film was both. The question now is whether audiences will connect with a rom-com that's really about grief, chronic illness, and the sisters who carry us through.
Este Haim has spent years performing sold-out shows alongside her sisters Danielle and Alana, but nothing prepared her for the emotional gauntlet of scoring Netflix's Voicemails for Isabelle. The Grammy-nominated artist, working alongside composer Amanda Yamate, dove into the project early โ building the film's central love theme before a single frame was shot, based purely on the logline. "The thing that really caught my attention was the fact that it was about sisters," Haim exclusively told The Hollywood Reporter.
"Clearly that's a huge component of my life." But what started as a creative opportunity quickly became something far more personal: the film's central narrative, following Zoey Deutch's Jill recounting adventures to her deceased sister Isabelle, struck an unexpected nerve with the musician who has spent years managing chronic illness alongside her bandmates. "I'm a type one diabetic and have Hashimoto's and neuropathy, and a whole laundry list of ailments that can sometimes hinder me from living my best life," Haim revealed in the interview.
"When you have chronic illness, you never want to be a burden on people. I really felt during the beginning of Voicemails that I was connecting with [the sister dynamic]." The admission marks one of Haim's most candid discussions about her health challenges โ and sources say it wasn't easy to get. Yamate, who co-scored the film set to drop Friday (June 19), confirmed that the scoring process hit both composers hard.
"The process was actually that we just cried," Yamate said with a laugh that quickly faded. Haim agreed: "Oh my god, every day." The emotional weight manifested in the music itself โ particularly the track "This Party Sucks Without You," which appears five or six times throughout the film, underscoring moments between Jill and her departed sister Izzy. Here's what might surprise rom-com audiences expecting straightforward romance: Wes and Jill, played by Nick Robinson, don't even have a dedicated love theme.
The entire musical architecture of Voicemails for Isabelle revolves around sisterly devotion, not romantic love. "The main theme is a love theme for Jill and Izzy, the sisters," Yamate explained. "Those moments between Jill and Izzy are so raw and delicate that I feel like [live winds and live strings] is what Leah was liking." For Haim, whose sisters Danielle and Alana witness her daily health struggles firsthand, the connection ran deeper than professional collaboration.
"It's definitely grating on me, but it's also not lost on me that it can be really exhausting for them too," she admitted. "But they never let me see that. They never make me feel like I'm too much or I'm a burden or anything that I need is too much." That's the kind of devotion Isabelle's film captures โ and sources say it's exactly why director Leah McKendrick spent eight years developing this story before landing at Netflix.
