Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth star in Lonely Planet, in which a novelist attending a writers’ retreat finds love with a younger man in an exotic place. Photo: Supplied.
Of late, there has been a barrage of films about age-gap romances, usually involving an ‘’older’’ woman. Lonely Planet falls into that category, a sphere of ordinariness.
However, it’s the location in a country of “dazzling diversity” that presents the excuse to sit through this one. Should you wish, with the remote at the ready, you can quickly skip through to the important bits – towards the end!
Ready for a quick trip to Morocco (Marrakesh, to be precise)? Here’s a pulsating city full of history and culture. Traversing the sweeping countryside, it’s easy to pick up the vibes in the crowded markets and the city’s winding streets.
Lonely Planet is more about reconsidering experiences, rearranging the content of your life, adapting it to reveal a rejuvenation of yourself. It’s about finding hope in a big mess. In some respects, it can be likened to a cathartic experience.
It stars Academy Award winner Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth (youngest brother of Chris and Luke). The plot pivots around a successful female novelist who finds love with an unlikely person in an exotic place.
A reclusive novelist, Katherine Loewe (Dern, Wild, Marriage Story, Jurassic Park) arrives at a writers’ retreat, hoping the distant setting will unlock her author’s block. While there, she meets a young man — Owen Brophy (Hemsworth, Independence Day: Resurgence, The Hunger Games film series). What starts as an acquaintance evolves into a life-altering love affair.
Brophy, a finance manager, arrives with his girlfriend, Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers, Space Force), who is there to participate in the retreat after having her debut novel released to great critical and financial success. This relationship is rocky.
Screenwriter, director and producer Susannah Grant wanted to make a film about the transformational power of travel with Lonely Planet.
“How sometimes journeying thousands of miles away from everything you know about your life can make you see it, and yourself, in a revealing new light,” Grant said.
“Katherine and Owen arrive in Morocco — far from all the familiar signposts of their day-to-day lives — more ready for change than either realises. A chance encounter throws them together in a dusty car on a bumpy road trip through the northern African hinterlands.
“Neither is looking for a new friend, but as they explore this new place together and navigate the unexpected challenges that can come with being an outsider in an unfamiliar culture, a surprising bond grows between them that makes them see that neither is exactly who they thought they were.”
Grant said, rightly, that when it came to both content and process, Lonely Planet ended up being a “testament to the power of letting go of the familiar – and a reminder of how much can be learned by forgetting everything you thought you knew”.
Grant wrote the screenplays for Erin Brockovich (which received an Oscar nomination in 2001), directed by Steven Soderbergh; Ever After; 28 Days; and Disney’s Pocahontas. Grant co-created, wrote and directed the 2019 Netflix miniseries Unbelievable, adapted from real events. It starred Kaitlyn Dever and Toni Collette.
With this one, Grant controls the reins, moving away from over-sentimentality.
For Dern, there were a lot of attractive qualities that drew her to making this film.
“The exploration of identity and self-worth within relationships, especially in a world as intellectually charged as the literary scene,” Dern said. “The dynamic between the younger man and the older, established writer intrigued me because it’s not just about romance Adapted from real events, it’s about finding someone who truly sees and understands you, which is something deeply human and relatable.”
Katherine is at a turning point in her life, which has been dedicated to the narrative, thereby resulting in her not spending much time looking at the deep truth within. Now, she is looking for a softening and deeper understanding, which she finds in a love story.
While this story’s dramatic depth and freshness are absent, the pace is sluggish and there are no twisters to surprise us, the two leads stealthily build on the attraction between them, encouraging and surprising each other in every scene.
Compare this movie to others in its genre: The Idea of You is for the diehard romantics, Find Me Falling is an engaging serenade to second chances and A Family Affair lacked fervour and one liaison that’s best forgotten.
Conversely, with Lonely Planet, it’s those gentler, vulnerable, romantic moments – towards the end – that are satisfying. I guess when you get unstuck, things kinda fall into place!
Lonely Planet, directed by Susannah Grant, is streaming on Netflix
