Watching a good rom-com should be like “finding hope in a big mess.” In “Lonely Planet,” Netflix’s latest romance, 30-something Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth) believes the same sentiment applies to his Moroccan tryst with 50-something Elizabeth Lowe (Laura Dern). Within this paradigm, romance is supposed to be the antidote to the complicated realities of life; however, like with love, the fantasy of what could be does not often match reality as is.
The reality is that these days, rom-coms themselves are often more messy than hopeful. And they aren’t the endearing kind of mess that makes a leading love interest more relatable or a fated relationship feel more attainable.
Instead, the genre is muddled with low-budget, underwritten cable clichés (Hallmark’s new lineup of holiday movies will begin to air this week) and higher-budget, overproduced stories that just aren’t that good. Some of this year’s biggest rom-coms in the latter category have also featured an age gap, like Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in their underwhelming adaptation of “The Idea of You” for Prime Video and Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in their generic Netflix film “A Family Affair.”
While Dern and Hemsworth are the latest big names to join this trend, their movie stands out as the best of streaming’s recent age-gap romances because it engenders more hope than mess (even though it’s definitely still a little messy).
The film, written and directed by Susannah Grant, takes place during an international writer’s retreat outside Marrakech at a stunning hotel with picturesque patios overlooking the Atlas Mountains. Elizabeth, a best-selling novelist in an undefined genre, arrives for the retreat post-breakup and on deadline. Owen, a finance bro, is present as a plus one. His girlfriend, Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), is a new writer whose first book, a “glorified beach read,” hit the bestseller list and catapulted her career to a level that led to her invitation to this retreat, and she’s still green enough to bring her boyfriend along.
While Elizabeth is only there for space and time to finish her book, Lily is there to network and explore a new country. Owen isn’t quite sure why he agreed to go. He doesn’t love traveling. “People always say it’s going to be this transformative experience, you know. Go to a new, exotic place. Meet the new, exotic you. But you get there, and you’re not new or exotic. You’re just you,” he laments to Elizabeth during one of their early interactions set against the blue-painted walls of Chefchaouen.
“That’s true,” Elizabeth says with an air of writer-ly wisdom before quoting French novelist Gustave Flaubert, who said, “The point of travel was to make us modest.”
There isn’t much modesty about “Lonely Planet.” Like “The Idea of You” and “A Perfect Marriage,” it takes place within an inaccessible world of privilege. The characters aren’t boyband members or movie stars, but they are successful, celebrated writers being treated to an exclusive and luxurious all-expense paid vacation in North Africa.
However, unlike those films that take place within a heightened reality of fame and focus on the intersectionality of motherhood and sexuality and parenthood and independence, “Lonely Planet” separates itself completely from those topics. Elizabeth — as far as the viewer knows — doesn’t have kids, and the movie doesn’t even directly address the age gap between the two characters, even though the two-and-a-half decades that separate them is probably the biggest gap of the three.
The result is that, unlike the escapist vacation the movie portrays, it somehow manages to feel more real than its counterparts. While very few specifics are revealed about Owen or Elizabeth’s lives, the conversations they share while getting to know each other fuel their muted infatuation in a realistic way. Their banter — sometimes forced, sometimes clunky, sometimes clever — is imperfect in a way that feels probable, as do their edited self-descriptions of the messy parts of their lives. Elizabeth’s ex-partner said she wasn’t a loving person worth sharing a life with, and Owen unhappily works in finance to make deals for bosses who aren’t trustworthy.
Like two people meeting for the first time, Owen and Elizabeth curate what and how much of themselves to reveal. With each unexpected encounter, exchange of words and shared commiserating look, their relationship progresses from new acquaintances to casual friends to allies among a literary crowd they choose not to fit in with. Additionally, between their age gap and the presence of Owen’s girlfriend, a romantic relationship isn’t inevitable or even probable.
Their relationship could be simply defined as unexpected friends. While supportive of each other when thrown together on a trip, they don’t have the chemical propulsion that means they must become lovers. So when Owen and Lily’s relationship predictably cracks because she is outgrowing it and he doesn’t know who she is anymore, it’s not because of Elizabeth. But their separation opens the door for her even though it’s not a door she has to step through.
But, I’m glad she does. Dern and Hemsworth have unexpectedly intriguing chemistry, and it was fun to see them leave the confines of the retreat to explore Morocco. The beautiful and curated settings of an area that appears less frequently on screen offer a fun escape for the viewer.
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It’s also refreshing to see an age-gap love story where the older partner actually looks significantly older. While Dern is characteristically chic and stunning in her role, she is also visibly older than Hemsworth’s character, even though this difference and what it means for any shared future is never addressed.
While the avoidance of the realities that await them at home is believable when getting to know each other as strangers thrown together for a glorified vacation, the lack of information they share after they embark on their tryst throughout Morocco is less believable, revealing bigger plot holes and a lack of character development that weigh down the final quarter of the movie. Are they two characters sharing a life-changing, short-lived romance, or two characters headed toward a shared future? The answer is unclear.
These shortcomings become the most pronounced in the movie’s climax and resolution, which I won’t spoil, but they are underwhelming, and the ending of the movie feels inconsistent as a result.
However, despite these weaknesses, I still enjoyed watching “Lonely Planet” more than either of the age-gap movies that preceded it. While it’s not a novel addition to the rom-com genre, it’s not a total mess, and that alone makes it stand out among the sad state of the rom-com genre today. One could even argue that there’s enough that feels different to spark hope in a future with better rom-coms, at least better age-gap ones.