“'Lonely Planet' review: The Netflix film's great age-gap romance”

Watching a good romantic comedy should be like “finding hope in a big mess.” In Lonely Planet, Netflix's latest romance, 30-year-old Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth) believes the same feeling applies to his Moroccan rendezvous with 50-year-old Elizabeth Lowe (Laura Dern). Within this paradigm, romance is supposed to be the antidote to the complicated realities of life; But as with love, the fantasy of what could be often doesn't match reality as it is.

The reality is that romantic comedies these days are often more chaotic than hopeful. And they're not the lovable kind of mess that makes a main love interest more likable or a fated relationship seem more attainable.

Instead, the genre is muddled with cheap, made-for-cable clichés (Hallmark's new slate of holiday movies begins airing this week) and over-produced, higher-budget stories that just aren't that good. Some of this year's biggest romantic comedies in the latter category also feature an age gap, like Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine in their disappointing Prime Video adaptation of The Idea of ​​You and Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in their generic Netflix Movie “A Family Affair.”

While Dern and Hemsworth are the latest big names to join this trend, their film stands out as the best of the recent streaming age gap romances because it evokes more hope than chaos (even if it's definitely still a little messy) .

Written and directed by Susannah Grant, the film is set during an international writer's vacation outside Marrakech, in a stunning hotel with picturesque terraces overlooking the Atlas Mountains. Elizabeth, a best-selling author in an undetermined genre, arrives at the retreat post-breakup and on time for her deadline. Owen, a finance brother, is there as a plus. His girlfriend, Lily Kemp (Diana Silvers), is a new author whose first book, a “glorified beach read,” hit the bestseller list and catapulted her career to a level that led to her being invited to this retreat, and she is always still green enough to bring her boyfriend with her.

While Elizabeth only has time and space to finish her book, Lily is there to socialize and explore a new country. Owen isn't entirely 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 somewhere new, exotic. Get to know your new, exotic self. But when you get there you are neither new nor exotic. “You’re just being you,” he laments to Elizabeth during one of their first interactions in front of the blue-painted walls of Chefchaouen.

“That’s true,” Elizabeth says with literary wisdom, before quoting the French writer Gustave Flaubert, who said, “The point of travel was to make us humble.”

“Lonely Planet” isn’t very modest. Like “The Idea of ​​You” and “A Perfect Marriage,” it is set in an inaccessible world of privilege. The characters are not boy band members or movie stars, but successful, celebrated writers enjoying an exclusive and luxurious, all-expenses-paid vacation in North Africa.

But unlike the films that take place in a heightened reality of fame and focus on the intersectionality of motherhood and sexuality and parenthood and independence, “Lonely Planet” separates itself from these themes entirely. As far as the viewer knows, Elizabeth has no children, and the film doesn't even directly address the age difference between the two characters, although the two and a half decades separating them is probably the biggest gap of the three.

The result is that, unlike the escapist vacation the film portrays, it somehow seems more real than its counterparts. While very few details are revealed about Owen or Elizabeth's lives, the conversations they have as they get to know each other realistically fuel their muted infatuation. Her jokes — sometimes forced, sometimes heavy-handed, sometimes clever — are imperfect in a way that feels likely, as are her edited self-descriptions of the messier parts of her life. Elizabeth's ex-partner said she wasn't a loving person and wasn't worth sharing life with, and Owen unfortunately works in finance making deals for bosses who aren't trustworthy.

Like two people meeting for the first time, Owen and Elizabeth decide what and how much of themselves they want to reveal. With every unexpected encounter, every exchange of words, and every shared compassionate look, their relationship evolves from new acquaintances to casual friends to allies in a literary group they don't want to fit in with. Furthermore, a romantic relationship is neither inevitable nor likely due to the age difference and the presence of Owen's girlfriend.

Their relationship could simply be defined as unexpected friends. While they support each other on a journey, they lack the chemical drive that means they must become lovers. So when Owen and Lily's relationship predictably falls apart because she outgrows it and he no longer knows who she is, it's not Elizabeth's fault. But their breakup opens the door for her, even if it's not a door she has to walk through.

But I'm glad she does. The chemistry between Dern and Hemsworth is unexpectedly interesting, and it was fun watching them leave the retreat to explore Morocco. The beautiful and curated locations of an area rarely seen on screen provide the viewer with an entertaining retreat.

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, although this difference and its importance for a shared future are never discussed.

While their avoidance of the realities that await them at home as they get to know each other as strangers thrown together for a glorified vacation is believable, the lack of information they share after they embark on their tryst through Morocco is, less believable and reveals major plot holes and a lack of character development that weigh down the final quarter of the film. Is it two characters sharing a life-changing, short-lived romance, or two characters heading toward a future together? The answer is unclear.

These flaws are most evident in the film's climax and resolution, which I won't give away, but they are disappointing and make the film's ending feel inconsistent.

But despite these flaws, I still enjoyed watching “Lonely Planet” more than the previous two age gap films. While it's not a new addition to the rom-com genre, it's not a total mess either, and that alone stands out from the sad state of the rom-com genre today. One could even argue that there are enough things that feel different to give hope for a future with better rom-coms, at least better age-gap rom-coms.