Movie Review: Lonely Planet (2024)

Genre: Romantic Drama  

Director: Susannah Grant  

Starring: Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth  

Running Time: 96 minutes  

Synopsis: Suffering from writer's block and a disintegrating relationship, celebrated author Katherine Loewe (Laura Dern) attends a writers' retreat at a secluded resort in Morocco. She keeps to herself and avoids group activities to focus on writing. Also in attendance is up-and-coming writer Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), whose first book was a surprise best-seller. She is accompanied by her boyfriend Owen (Liam Hemsworth), an equity manager and a misfit in this crowd. As Lily starts to enjoy herself in the company of other writers, Owen and Katherine are drawn together.

What Works Well: In what is essentially a travelogue, the Morocco locations are attractively filmed and add plenty of colour, despite the absence of meaningful local characters. Laura Dern delivers a psychologically haggard and lived-in performance as a woman experiencing multiple fractured pillars in her life.

What Does Not Work As Well: The pace is slow as the linear narrative defaults to a series of samey conversations between Katherine and Owen. Both are disillusioned, resulting in a suffocatingly mopey mood. Owen's sorrow is a result of being cold-shouldered by the literati, contextually undermining the older woman-younger man romance since Katherine is a more famous author than Lily. A one-dimensional Liam Hemsworth struggles to find depth in Owen, while the supporting characters are truncated at cursory introductions.

Key Quote:

Lily (to the group of writers, referring to Owen): He only reads Sports Illustrated.

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