Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth in Netflix Romance

As they begin their acquaintance, Owen (Liam Hemsworth) admits to Katherine (Laura Dern) that he’s not really interested in traveling. “People always say it’s going to be this transformative experience. Go to a new, exotic place, meet your new, exotic self,” he says. “But when you get there, you’re neither new nor exotic. You’re just being you.”

Lonely planet As it is, Owen will of course be proven wrong. Actually, this trip they take in Morocco will change their lives, especially by plunging them into a turbulent courtship. But if the Netflix romance represents a one-time encounter, the experience of actually watching it is decidedly more mundane. It’s neither boring enough to be painful nor funny enough to be compelling, it’s just too boring to make much of an impression at all.

Actually, that’s not entirely fair. There’s one thing that writer-director Susannah Grant (an Oscar nominee) is for Erin Brockovich) is very convincing and promotes Morocco as a holiday destination. From the moment Katherine arrives at her writer’s retreat, we are led through one postcard-worthy image after another: luxury rooms with intricately patterned silks, majestic ruins steeped in centuries of history, pretty streets with watercolor blue walls. The views from the Kasbah, deep in the hills outside Marrakech, are consistently spectacular. As fellow visitor Lily (Diana Silvers) gasps to Owen, the finance friend she brought with her, “You can see forever.”

Sure, there are occasional inconveniences, including car engine failure and mild food poisoning. But even these setbacks turn out to be blessings in disguise—by which I mean romantic narrative constructs so clunky that I briefly wondered if that was the case Lonely planet could turn out to be a much stranger film, about a hostess who toys with her guests’ love lives for her own nefarious purposes. (It’s not. Unfortunately.)

Although Katherine desperately tries to finish her novel, she has to leave her room when she realizes that the faucet doesn’t work and she has no water. Although Owen is only there to support Lily, poor cell service forces him outside as well. The two seem fascinated by each other from the moment their eyes meet; They quickly form a friendship that inevitably leads to something new.

Supposedly, Katherine and Owen share the immediate and indescribable lightness they feel with one another. What really seems to unite them, however, is the fact that they’re otherwise surrounded by assholes, Lily included.

Lonely planetThe depiction of elite writers could be considered scathing satire if the film had a stronger sense of detail or sense of humor. When these scribes aren’t flattering each other, they’re openly mocking Owen for not remembering a character’s name Great expectations. Only Katherine treats him with basic courtesy, not to mention genuine interest in his thoughts, his feelings, his high school memories, and his current work problems. (But to be fair, even he doesn’t seem particularly interested in his own private equity job.)

Otherwise, there is only mild and inconsistent chemistry between the two. Katherine is written without much of a personality, but the ever-reliable Dern still manages to anchor her with an earthy charm. Owen is drawn even more sketchily, perhaps because he is essentially just the vessel for her desires and Hemsworth is less able to make the character his own. Ultimately, it feels like this role could have been played by any other conventionally good-looking 30-year-old in Hollywood.

Together they seem like two nice people who are having a good time, but hardly deep or passionate. Even their climactic love scenes are less than stimulating, considering both leads are drowned in so much shadow and choppy editing that I wondered how many of them were performed by body doubles. On the other hand, close-ups aren’t really the film’s strong point. Whether through a lighting or makeup trick or actual VFX work, there are moments where the actors look so arranged that they don’t seem quite real.

But this half-heartedness seems to be a staple of the rest of the film, which barely bothers to imagine Owen and Katherine’s worlds outside of their connection. Although one or two scenes take place after the trip, we don’t spend any time in the characters’ real homes or with their friends who aren’t on vacation. (In fact, I’m not sure we ever really learn what cities they live in.) Although Katherine’s writer’s block is the catalyst for this whole adventure, we don’t even learn what kind of books she writes – only that she’s from the Critically acclaimed and commercially successful.

In broad strokes, Lonely planet fits right in with this year’s mini-trend of romances between older women and younger friends Your idea, A family affair and what is to come Baby girl. And while it never directly addresses the age difference, it technically fulfills the dream of meeting a hot young thing who appeals to you intellectually, emotionally, and sexually in a way that no one else has.

But the actual wish fulfillment it sells is far sillier. It’s about forever becoming that “new and exotic” person you become when you travel, without the annoying realities of life back home ever really getting in the way. In short, it’s a fantasy that you might live on your vacation forever. Maybe even in mild, beautiful Morocco.