There’s an old Irish blessing that goes like this: May you have a free trip to Morocco and fall in love with a Hemsworth. Until that becomes a reality for all of us, we will have to live vicariously through Laura Dern in the new movie Lonely planet (Netflix, October 11). Dern plays novelist Katherine, who is invited to vacation at a beautiful estate in the Atlas Mountains. She hopes to escape writer’s block there—but instead (or also), she meets a young private equity titan named Owen (Liam Hemsworth).
Private equity has significantly diminished his manhood; in the film, he is in the process of acquiring a coal mining company and the writer-director Susannah Grant just allow a little skepticism about his toxic industry. Otherwise, we too will be swept off our feet like Katherine, whose heart gradually opened to romantic possibilities after a difficult breakup, and whose mind cleared to make room for a new book.
We’ve seen this before—Lonely planetInstead of taking the title of a travel book series, it could have been called Under the Marrakech sun. Or what? Eat, write, love Liam Hemsworth? While there isn’t much food in this movie, save for a sandwich that makes it easy for Owen to get food poisoning.
Owen is on a trip as the guest of his girlfriend, emerging young novelist Lily (Diana Silvers), whose enthusiasm for the experience was seen by Owen as strangely rude. Accidentally or not, Lonely planet Give compelling reasons for not bringing your partner on certain business trips. (Especially when there are cute Libyan memoirists to flirt with.) But Owen is there, and the script has to find a way to separate him from Lily so he can banter with Katherine.
They end up the only two on a road trip, the setup being that Katherine wants to do some writing in the back seat of an SUV as it hits the mountain roads—I’m surprised Owen is the only one vomiting in the movie. In sequences like these, Grant leans on the archaic exoticism that plagues stories like this; Surrounded by humble Moroccan villagers, the two wealthy whites form an obvious connection.
Lonely planet full of such clichés, from Owen’s constant work interruptions—why can’t we unplugdude—with tons of generic literary references meant to clear things up. This is not as complex a film as one would hope. However it has its fun. The film’s romantic premise is, indeed, extremely alluring, as is the dreamy idea that some unexpected love might be waiting just a free business class flight away.
Remarkably, but also sadly, this is Dern’s first leading role in six years. That’s a huge gap and we should be grateful that the drought is over. Dern brings an authenticity and insight that the script tries but fails to evoke. She sharply plays someone slowly letting herself go, engaging in the moment despite deserved vigilance. I found myself craving some enlightenment-style (or, maybe more appropriate, The strangest Marigold hotel-style) voiceover, anything that can give us more of Dern in a movie that desperately needs her.
Hemsworth is perfectly tall and handsome in his role, but he doesn’t do enough to turn the former quarterback turned corporate raider into someone likable. It’s never clear why we should side with Owen in his argument with Lily—at least not until Grant falls for a plot device that perhaps tips the balance unfairly. Yet we understand Katherine’s initial infatuation: this is someone completely different from those of her intellectual circle, a fundamentally friendly person, surprisingly open to conversation. profound. Maybe he’s not so basic after all!
Lonely planet goes pretty exactly where it’s expected to go, but this is a popular formula for a reason. Fantasies like these can be fulfilled even in rickety packaging. Really, all it takes is some pretty scenery and a pair of actors who can sell their chemistry. Lonely planet checks those boxes, even if it leaves one longing for a more elegant vehicle for Dern—one in which her romantic adventures can truly inspire.
