‘Lonely Planet’: Laura Dern Rom-Com Is a Better Travel Ad Than Movie

Did anyone have a Morocco-set rom-com starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth on their 2024 bingo card? If so, congratulations, even if the resulting film is a limp, chemistry-free excuse for the two actors to visit a series of aspirational destinations and get a nice Netflix paycheck. Dern, a national treasure, can be commended for her efforts in Lonely Planet, a made-for-streaming movie about an author, Katherine Loewe, who travels to a writers’ retreat to finish her novel after a breakup. It’s there she meets Owen Brophy, an investor (or something) who is the boyfriend of young novelist Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers). What ensues is a series of scenes forcing the two characters together even though they have nothing in common and can’t conjure a single spark. 

Katherine arrives to the luxurious, remote retreat without her luggage and with an isolationist attitude. She’s there only to write, not to interact with the other writers, who she seems to regard with derision. Lily has brought Owen along—a bizarre decision if you know how writing retreats work—despite the fact that he doesn’t enjoy travel and is always on the phone making deals. By happenstance, Katherine and Owen end up stuck on a dusty road in a broken-down car after a day gallivanting around Chefchaouen. They connect, although it’s unclear over what, a disconnect that is unrelated to their disparate ages. Owen and Lily become more and more distant as the days pass, with her humiliating him during a literary game (he doesn’t know who Pip from Great Expectations is, which should be humiliating if he ever graduated from high school). Katherine and Owen become more and more drawn to each other, and the viewer becomes more and more disinterested. 

Lonely Planet, from award-winning writer and director Susannah Grant, should add up to something compelling. It’s got beautiful settings and basically functions as a travel advertisement for Morocco. The premise is decent and Katherine is a relatable character who seems at home in a rom-com. But Hemsworth, who has always struggled to conjure captivating emotion onscreen, can’t bring Owen to life. He’s just a good-looking guy who wants to protect the people who invest with him (or something). What Katherine sees in him is completely unclear, although Dern does her best with the script she’s given. When the pair finally do get together, in one of film history’s most uncomfortable sex scenes, you don’t want to root for them. A better version of this movie is Katherine falling in love with the hot retreat worker who is constantly finding her somewhere quiet to work. 

Of course, despite these hiccups, Lonely Planet seems destined for Netflix’s Top Ten. The algorithm knows what people are going to watch and the coupling up of Dern and Hemsworth is impossible to deny. You have to see what happens, even if you know the end result isn’t going to win anyone an Oscar. The movie isn’t necessarily bad—it’s just wooden and unconvincing, both attributes that apply to many romance movies of the past that we still watch and moderately enjoy. Dern deserves a better rom-com with a better co-star. She’s always compelling and it’s clear she could be a winning leading lady in a movie like this (proving, of course, that age is irrelevant when it comes to love and to Hollywood). Katherine is searching for inspiration during her time in Morocco and, meanwhile, Dern should search for a better project. 

‘Lonely Planet’ is streaming on Netflix now.