On October 11, 2024, Netflix released 'Lonely Planet', which failed to impress critics, earning a score of 27% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing. In the film, "A reclusive novelist arrives at a prestigious writer's retreat in Morocco, hoping the remote setting will unlock her writer's block. While there, she meets a young man -- what starts as an acquaintanceship evolves into an intoxicating, life-altering love affair." The ensemble cast includes Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth, Diana Silvers, and Adriano Giannini. But what did the critics say?
Adrian Horton of Guardian says, "These characters are all in some way aspirational, though not particularly admirable. Owen and Catherine repeat the phrase “new and exotic” about Morocco a few too many times for comfort – lamenting how travel does not actually take you far from yourself, while bonding over an impromptu visit to a local village. Owen makes a passing effort to interact with Lily; Lily barely hides how boring she finds him, and is clearly taken with Rafih (Younès Boucif), who “wrote that beautiful memoir about his time as a child soldier in Libya!” (lol). All three of them are at times oblivious and self-absorbed and they say laughably on-the-nose things, particularly as Owen develops a moral conscience about private equity screwing over a family-owned coalmine in West Virginia." Adding, "Yet Lonely Planet proves to be smarter and more attentive than its beach-read feint. The film features plenty of tourism-ad footage of Morocco, from Marrakech to Chaouen, that elevates it above the overlit Netflix canon. But it also undercuts its own exoticism with a short and effective montage of service workers at the retreat cleaning up beer bottles, trash and a discarded bra after the group’s nightly revelry. All the character flaws, paradoxically, give heft to a likable central romance between two easily dislikable people, who are filmed with a winsome naturalness, and blurred edges like their tipsy circling of each other. Both Dern and Hemsworth bring their requisite qualities (luminous, layered neuroticism, sad eyes and abs) to the pairing, which feels spiky, surprising and tender, up to and including a very female gaze-y sex scene on the dresser."
Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com notes, "Written and directed by Susannah Grant, “Lonely Planet” did not assuage any feelings of loneliness–it might even have enhanced them. After all the Hollywood movies featuring older men hooking up with younger women, we can’t enjoy an older woman developing feelings for a younger man without worrying about his fragile ego or watching her pursue him because he won’t go after her. The movie gets some ingredients right for its retro romantic comedy, but it lacks the fantasy that gets viewers to believe in an unlikely match: that magnetic attention when eyes meet and can’t look away from each other or the longing stares and stray thoughts about what would you do if you could only get closer to that person. “Careful, I could fall for a kid like you,” Katherine purrs before accidentally wounding her love interest’s feelings, but he has nothing to worry about. There’s not enough chemistry to burn up the screen, or even warm it up."
Alyssa Christian of Next Best Picture was equally as unimpressed, stating, "Overall, “Lonely Planet” is a visually pleasing film that offers moments of charm to keep you engaged, but the romantic arc feels half-baked, and the supposedly shocking or surprising twists do not land at all. The beautiful setting and Toprak’s lush score do much of the heavy lifting, leaving the central love story feeling more like a diversion than the heart of the film. It is a perfectly forgettable romantic dramedy that happens to take place in (and was filmed in) an exotic locale."
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| Photo by LexScope on Unsplash |
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