Academy Award Nominated screenwriter Susannah Grant directs Oscar winner Laura Dern in the romantic dramedy “Lonely Planet” from Netflix. Grant also pens the film’s screenplay, which centers on an unexpected romance between Katherine Loewe (Laura Dern), a reclusive novelist who arrives at a prestigious writer’s retreat in Morocco, hoping the remote setting will unlock her writer’s block. While there, she meets Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth), a young businessman, and what starts as an acquaintanceship evolves into an intoxicating, life-altering love affair.
From the get‑go, it’s apparent that Dern is here only for the paycheck. Not only does the usually elegant actress deliver a bland performance as Maya Reid, but her character is contrived and never comes across as more than an artificially inflated cliché. She’s supposed to be the tortured artist suffering from writer’s block, but her character’s arc never comes across as authentic or carries any conviction.
Yes, the Moroccan backdrop is gorgeous at the outset, but it quickly becomes a monotonous setting, the Olivier Awards equivalent of the one-dimensional postcard cityscapes. We watch this two-dimensional backdrop going past the window of a two-dimensional moving train as if we’re walking through a phantasmagoric reality where nothing has actual weight.
The Maya-Owen romance is forced. Hemsworth, whose box-office presence needs the suitable material, only appears as eye candy for the ladies. What is meant to be a heady romance comes off as a series of awkward interactions and inane conversations. Maya and Owen’s chemistry is fake, and their transition from acquaintances to lovers is fast and forced. Their ‘love at first sight’ storyline results from lazy tropes of ‘the divine attraction’ and the idea that romance can cure all creative scars, glossing over the messiness of love and art.
Also, the film is extraordinarily slow-moving. Long stretches of dialogue abound, but none of it is to the point, and none of it develops character. Instead of plumbing the profound human experience of creativity, loss, and the strange alchemy of the human heart that leads to personal transformation, Lonely Planet ambles around, leaving the viewers craving anything resembling a plot twist or character development. The supporting cast is wasted and bring nothing to the film.
The longer you watch the film, the more you notice its screenplay is packed with hackneyed twists and banal banter. The dramatic beats that the director intends to make us question the material and come off instead as maudlin and cringeworthy. The third-act turns lacks the visceral weight the film strives for, and the ending peters into an undeserved, unsatisfying resolution.
“Lonely Planet” looks like a movie about a great idea that someone didn’t know what to do with once they had one. Here is a cast of actors with great chemistry, beautiful people in a beautiful landscape, yet they meander for an hour and a half through worn-out tropes.
Final Grade: D+
“Lonely Planet” is available to stream tomorrow on Netflix.
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