'Lonely Planet' Review: Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth Sizzle in Unconventional Love Story

In a year when sultry romances like "The Idea of You" and "Babygirl" feature younger men courting older women, writer-director Susannah Grant's "Lonely Planet" feels genuinely novel in that it avoids addressing the issues that arise when an older woman falls in love with a man who is nearly half her age. She would rather to investigate the intricate webs of life that brought these people together in the first place. Even if there are a lot of finer elements in the film that really need to be worked out, the intricacies of these two people' lives are interesting enough.

Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth in 'Lonely Planet.'

Anne Marie Fox/Netflix

Katherine, a renowned novelist played by Laura Dern, is in a rut. She was just forced out of their house and separated from her cancer-surviving ex-husband, a sculptor, and is currently struggling to create her next book. To get over her annoyances and concentrate on her editor's deadlines, she has traveled thousands of miles to Marrakesh, where she is staying in an elite international writer's retreat. However, the journey becomes complicated when she arrives. The airlines misplaced her bags, she finds out that her sultry ex-boyfriend Ugo (Adriano Giannini) is also there, and the water pipes in her opulent suite are broken. She never seems to be able to relax. Until she does, anyhow.

Presenting Liam Hemsworth's thirty-something character Owen. He plays the loyal boyfriend to invited novelist Lily (Diana Silvers), an overnight star who is under pressure to write her follow-up novels, and he believes he has life figured out, handling a high-stakes career in private equity. But as the other retreat invitees work and explore, fate pairs Owen and Katherine for outings into the neighboring Moroccan markets. The two strike into a flirtatious friendship while talking about deep subjects like human nature, jobs, and travel. However, at the same time, the surface of Owen and Lily's apparently ideal relationship breaks down as their regular chats turn into heated disagreements. It becomes more and more obvious that Owen and Katherine are destined to cross paths and have a turbulent love affair.

When it comes to her main characters, Grant has an excellent sense of subtlety and subtext. She especially excels at handling the more difficult situations that eventually lead to Owen and Katherine's steamy romance. She delves into the nuances of the younger couple's arguments and discord, implying that their bond is more wrecked than the real ruins they happen to see on a day trip. In Owen and Lily's breakup, no one is the traditional Bad Guy per se, but her conceit, callous insincerity, and thoughtless emotional adultery with fellow writer Rafih (Younès Boucif) are far more evident than his workaholic diversion. When voicing some of the material's most painful sounds, Silvers carefully avoids using language undertones that make Lily appear silly rather than rational.

The story's most fascinating aspect is the way the characters are portrayed: unlike previous movies of similar kind, Katherine is neither a victim of her current situation nor visibly sexually unsatisfied. Despite the fact that there are tiny sparks between them everytime they are together, she isn't approaching Owen either. This pair and their connection feel genuine and deep; they both mistake survival mode for happiness throughout life, but when the chance for true love presents itself, they understand that they can both be better versions of themselves in each other's company. All of this is brilliantly portrayed by Dern and Hemsworth, who infuse a lively fun into the cornier genre-mandated clichés (such as their meet-cute and third act conflict).

Grant commits a few novice errors in her follow-up film to "Catch and Release," which came out in 2006. Minor transgressions are there from the outset, such as the frequent usage of gratingly subpar visual effects and day-for-night scenes. Given that Katherine's inability to find a working plumbing system led her to give up her room and work out of a storage closet, we find it puzzling that she frequently wears freshly cleaned hair without taking a shower. It is hard to believe that her nightly pool swim is the only reason she looks so young. Outside of the core three, supporting characters are mostly one-dimensional, and their token appearance doesn't really spice things up. Although Ugo and the diva-like old Nobel Prize winner Ada (Shosha Goren), who makes an appearance in one of the film's short humorous anecdotes, are given a limited amount of screen time, they also suffer from an astounding lack of development.

In contrast to Netflix's typical romantic comedy filled with antics, Grant maintains the film's tone more in keeping with "Under the Tuscan Sun." Nevertheless, the central idea of the story—that sometimes people need to become lost in order to discover themselves—feels more like a corny catchphrase plastered on wall décor than a profound realization. From the travelogue-style photos of the opulent house and its stunning desert environs to the kind grins on the faces of the locals as they dress and feed exhausted travelers, there seems to be a hollowness that the aesthetics are trying to hide. It seems like the algorithm crept in to make the entire less interesting than the parts, even if the characters are compelling and their circumstances are fascinating.