Laura Dern is the rare actor who could have chemistry with an empty chair. She is a graceful, beguiling presence that always lights up the screen, no matter the genre. The fact that she makes it look so easy and effortless is all the more endearing.
She’s a large part of why Susannah Grant’s Lonely Planet also works. Well, she and her co-star Liam Hemsworth. The two stars have actual chemistry, and in these algorithmic-fueled days of content, seeing two stars click feels like a water hole in the desert.
Lonely Planet is a romantic fantasy that skews heavily into fantasy despite Grant’s attempt at keeping everything grounded. Written and directed by Grant, the film is set at a writer’s retreat at a Moroccan Resort. In a way, I found Grant’s depiction of a writer’s treat charming. Characters breathlessly celebrate two-book deals that will leave them financially independent while schmoozing with other best-sellers while being waited on hand and foot.
However, this is Grant merely giving us the trappings of the romance genre. The beautiful exotic locale where two lost souls can meet and find solace in one another. The lost souls, of course, are Dern’s celebrated best-selling author Katherine and Hemsworth’s aw-shucks handsome fiance bro, Owen. Dern’s Katherine is in the midst of a divorce and dealing with writer’s block and is using the retreat to find some time to write.
Hemsworth’s Owen, however, is merely along for the ride. His girlfriend Lily (Diana Silvers) has written a surprise best-seller and is having her time to shine. Though the easygoing Owen seems like an odd fit for Lily, as we begin to see, he seems incurious about art of any kind. He does have a good head for making money, though his pesky conscience might keep him from going far.
Post-2008, I couldn’t help but laugh at the notion that Owen, a private equity broker, is shocked that his bosses might be amoral scumbags. Another of Grant’s fantastical flourishes. Hemsworth does a solid job of selling Owen.
But Lonely Planet lives or dies because of Dern. She seems to drift throughout the movie, but Grant and her cameraman, Ben Smithard, have but to look at her, and you can see the sea of turmoil underneath the surface. She gently flirts with Owen, but soon Owen is flirting back. The two look at each other with a kind of longing one reads about in books but rarely sees in films anymore.
There’s a scene between Dern and Hemsworth by the pool where he kisses her shoulder, which is filled with a romantic desire that comes very close to being swoon-worthy. Lonely Planet seduces and cajoles the viewer and lets us watch the two dance around each other, slowly drawing closer and closer.
Grant and Smithard frame Lonely Planet in sun-drenched simplicity. They let the Moroccan countryside flourish around the couple. One scene cleverly uses the local architecture to show Katherine and Owen walking down the alley surrounded by blue as if walking in a dream.
Lonely Planet looks good, taking care to make sure shots are never merely pedestrian. A revolving cast of authors and locals populate the film, making it feel like it’s an adaptation of a romance book.
But Dern is always there, the anchor that keeps Lonely Planet in orbit. To Hemsworth’s credit, he can match her beat for beat. The couple have a nice fit and rapport. With Lily, Owen seems like a bad fit; she’s still finding herself, and Owen is unsure of what he wants but sure of himself. But Katherine, an older woman who’s more forgiving and understanding, allows Owen the space to grow into the rarest of species, a good man.
Lonely Planet may be a bit cheezy and slightly slight, but it understands how writing consumes a writer. Late in the film, something happens to a manuscript and the devastation and loss that Katherine expresses are played straight because it’s not just a book but two years of her life. Grant and Smithard give Dern the space to express the turmoil of emotion while also showing how Owen doesn’t quite understand what she’s going through.
I found the choice to make Owen such a jock without ever trying to redeem him by making him a secret book nerd at the end charming. Owen may not know Dickens, but he knows Gladys Knight. He may not understand literature, but he knows the value of a promise and, in his own way, learns that standing for what you believe in sometimes means not making the deal of a lifetime.
Grant wisely makes Katherine and Owen perfect for each other but not perfect. We root for them but also understand why people are irritated with them. Lonely Planet hits all the required beats of a romance, replete with ending with its two leads kissing under a street lamp in New York City. But when your leads are as winsome as Dern and Hemsworth, who cares?
Images courtesy of Netflix
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