Lonely Planet (2024) Review: Not Even the Stellar Presence of Laura Dern Can Salvage This Tepid Age-Gap Romance

Lonely Planet marks yet another age-gap romance movies that seem to be trending this year. We already have Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in Prime Video’s The Idea of You and later, Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in Netflix’s A Family Affair. Now, with Lonely Planet joining the bandwagon, Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth try to make us invested in their journey and fall in love with their characters. Well, I love Laura Dern’s acting, going way back to 1986 when I first saw her in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Of course, most general audiences would remember her the most in Jurassic Park as Dr Ellie Sattler, easily the highest-profile role in her illustrious career.

Going back to Lonely Planet, the 57-year-old actress plays Kathrine Loewe, an accomplished novelist who suffers a few setbacks. She got kicked out of her ex’s home and if that’s not enough, she has a tight deadline to complete her new book. But with writer’s block keeps bugging her, she needs a place where she can fully concentrate on her work. And so, we see her travel all the way to Morocco — Marrakesh, to be exact — and stay at a lush writers’ retreat. It was a perfect spot for her to hole up in her room all alone and start typing on her laptop. Being a writers’ retreat, she forgoes the activities that have been set up to mingle with the rest of the writers or go sightseeing. All she cares about is completing her writing.

Then along came a young, hunky man named Owen (Liam Hemsworth), who is part of the group arriving at the retreat except he’s in the finance sector. He’s only here to accompany his writer girlfriend, Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers). While Lily is having fun chatting and laughing with other writers since they share common interests, Owen’s presence feels like an outcast because, well, he barely reads and doesn’t know much about literature. You can see where is this going as what started out seeing Owen and Lily like a sweet couple gradually turns sour at some point.

This brings us back to Katherine, who somehow feels connected with Owen. She may have been a writer herself but unlike Lily, Owen is more comfortable hanging out with her. Of course, they started as mere companions — talking, laughing and getting to know each other. Until a point where they start flirting with each other and so on.

Laura Dern does her best here while sharing a decent chemistry with Liam Hemsworth. Seeing them together against the gorgeous backdrop of tourist-friendly Morocco looks as if we have a winner here. But Susannah Grant, marking her second directorial feature since Catch and Release (she’s better known as a screenwriter, whose biggest achievement was Erin Brockovich), seems like she’s on autopilot here. Sure, filming this movie mostly on location in Morocco is a plus while Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth look attractive together, despite their age gaps.

And yet, even Dern’s above-average performance can’t save this tepid romantic drama. The movie may have run only 94 minutes but it sure feels like forever. Grant, who also wrote the screenplay, is disappointingly bland while sticking to a trite romantic-drama formula. It also doesn’t help that the age-gap romance angle takes its sweet time getting to the point. It’s not that I wanted this to be fast-paced but Grant somehow manages to turn this potentially good romantic drama into a crushing bore. The movie simply flatlines as it goes with only occasional worthwhile moments desperately holding on together. By the time Lonely Planet limps into the underwhelming third act, the movie has already lost its spark. Compared to The Idea of You and A Family Affair, this is easily the worst age-gap romance movie I have come across so far this year.

Lonely Planet is currently streaming on Netflix.