The Lonely Planet is a movie full of familiar tropes and missed opportunities, leaving viewers longing for a more original and engaging story.
Starring Liam Hemsworth and Laura Dern, this movie started off with Katherine Loewe (Laura Dern), a renowned novelist, going to a writer’s retreat at the last minute after dealing with writer’s block, likely caused by her recent divorce. Owen Brophy (Liam Hemsworth) came to the retreat as a guest with his girlfriend Lily. After feeling left out with the writers, Owen kindled an unlikely friendship with Katherine, his elder of around 20 years. Their relationship deepened as they bonded through shared struggles and repetitively ran into each other. Throughout the entire movie, moments between Owen and Katherine only occured because Owen had no interest in participating in the writer’s activities. Katherine, being a social recluse, also declined all offers of a “fun time” with other writers. This led to them constantly ending up in the same place at the same time. These interactions felt very forced, and, honestly, them ending up together hardly makes sense because she spends all of her time writing a book and trys her best to ignore him.
The reviews on Rotten Tomatoes replicate my dismay with this movie, laying at 40%. Top critic, Jen Yamato, at the Washington Post wrote “This lethargic romantic drama forces chemistry where there is none and, worse, sells out its aspirationally cool, intelligent female protagonist with an endgame that she — and the luminous Laura Dern — hardly deserves.”
In addition, Owen also had a bit of a pick-me attitude when it came to his current relationship. At one point, Lily made a comment that hurt his feelings, and instead of being mature about it, he just pouted and didn’t talk to her for the entire day. When they finally did talk, he discovered that she had slept with some other writer and they ended up breaking up. After this, he almost immediately went to Katherine. Though Lily did cheat on him, it felt very wrong to have him run straight to Katherine.
The age gap between Katherine and Owen was also just weird; he was in his 30s and she was in her 50s. There was one scene where after Katherine swims in the pool, she and Owen shared a passionate moment together. Watching two people with such a large age gap interact that way was very awkward. In a moment where you should be excited and engaged, you are instead avoiding watching. There are definitely some cute scenes too that balanced out the movie, but the age difference is just uncomfortable to watch as a high schooler.
If you’re looking for something to put on in the background or make comments about with your friends while still watching a relatively good movie, “The Lonely Planet” is for you. However, this is definitely not going to become the go-to rom-com for when you’re happy or heartbroken.