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There\u2019s an old Irish blessing that goes something like this: May you go on a free trip to Morocco and fall in love with a Hemsworth. Until it comes true for us all, we\u2019ll have to live vicariously through Laura Dern<\/strong> in the new film Lonely Planet<\/em> (Netflix, October 11). Dern plays novelist Katherine, who is invited to a retreat at a gorgeous estate in the Atlas Mountains. She hopes to shake off her writer\u2019s block there\u2014but instead (or also), she meets a young private equity hunk named Owen (Liam Hemsworth<\/strong>).<\/p>\n The private equity thing does reduce his hunkiness significantly; in the film, he\u2019s in the middle of purchasing a coal mining company, and writer-director Susannah Grant<\/strong> allows for just a little skepticism about his noxious industry. Otherwise, we are meant to be as swept off our feet as Katherine, whose heart gradually opens to romantic possibility after a difficult breakup, and whose mind is cleared to make way for a new book.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen this sort of thing before\u2014Lonely Planet<\/em>, instead of aping the title of a travel book series, could have been called Under the Marrakech Sun<\/em>. Or how about Eat, Write, Love Liam Hemsworth?<\/em> Though there isn\u2019t a ton of eating in this film, save for a sandwich that gives Owen narratively convenient food poisoning.<\/p>\n Owen is on the trip as the guest of his girlfriend, budding young novelist Lily (Diana Silvers<\/strong>), whose enthusiasm for the experience is strangely treated as rudeness to Owen. Accidentally or not, Lonely Planet<\/em> makes the compelling case for not bringing a significant other on certain sorts of work trips. (Especially when there are cute Libyan memoirists to be flirting with.) But there Owen is, and the script must find ways to separate him from Lily so that he can banter with Katherine.<\/p>\n They wind up the only two people on an excursion, the setup being that Katherine wants to get some writing done in the backseat of an SUV as it bumps down mountain roads\u2014I\u2019m surprised Owen is the only one who vomits in the movie. In sequences like these, Grant leans into the hoary exoticism that has long plagued stories like this; surrounded by humble Moroccan village folk, two wealthy white people form a palpable connection.<\/p>\n Lonely Planet<\/em> is full of such clich\u00e9, from Owen\u2019s constant work interruptions\u2014why can\u2019t we just unplug<\/em>, man\u2014to the myriad generic literary references meant to smarten things up. This is not as sophisticated a movie as it would like to be. And yet it has its pleasures. The film\u2019s romanticized setting is, indeed, awfully alluring, as is its dreamy idea that some unexpected love affair may be waiting just a free business-class plane ride away.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also remarkable, if also depressing, that this is Dern\u2019s first lead film role in six years. That is far too big a gap, and we should be grateful that the drought has ended. Dern brings the earthiness and wistful insight that the script tries for but can\u2019t quite conjure. She sharply plays a person gradually letting herself go, giving into the moment despite a well-earned guardedness. I found myself craving some Enlightened<\/em>-style (or, maybe more aptly, Best Exotic Marigold Hotel<\/em>-style) voice over, anything that might give us more of Dern in a movie seriously in need of her.<\/p>\n Hemsworth is perfectly tall and handsome in his role, but he doesn\u2019t do quite enough to shape a former quarterback turned corporate raider into someone likable. It\u2019s never clear why we should side with Owen in his arguments with Lily\u2014at least until Grant drops in a plot device that perhaps unfairly tilts the scales. Still, we understand Katherine\u2019s dawning infatuation: here is someone completely different from those in her literati circles, a friendly basic who is surprisingly open to deep conversation. Maybe he\u2019s not so basic after all!<\/p>\n Lonely Planet<\/em> goes pretty much exactly where one it expects it to, but this is a formula that is popular for a reason. Fantasies like this can satisfy even in creaky packaging. All it takes, really, is some nice scenery and a pair of actors who can sell their chemistry. Lonely Planet<\/em> checks those boxes, even if it makes one yearn for a more elegant vehicle for Dern\u2014one in which her romantic adventure might prove genuinely inspiring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n