‘LONELY PLANET’ IS A QUIET NETFLIX ROMANCE
Using a culturally popular trend and featuring recognizable stars, Netflix brings a quiet romance, Lonely Planet, to life in a story that is, sadly, all too relatable.
Lonely Planet (2024) Netflix Film Review
Needing to work on another novel is the sole goal of Katherine Loewe (Laura Dern) when reluctantly arriving to a beautiful, secluded place where the best of the best authors attend a retreat. She has no plans to join activities and instead locks herself away to get unstuck. While there, she befriends Owen (Liam Hemsworth), a lonely guy attending the retreat with his debut author girlfriend, Lily (Diana Silvers).
By chance, the two are thrown together for an outing and in time, they share conversation and find an unexpected deeper connection, but complicated doesn’t begin to describe this new friendship leading everyone to question their messy relationships and what they want from life.
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‘LONELY PLANET’ IS A QUIET NETFLIX ROMANCE. #LiamHemsworth and #LauraDern co-star in #Netflix romance. Share on X
Using a popular trend to tell its story, Lonely Planet is a film that does the trope better than most. That said, like its peers, it will be something that many people will find annoying. For the most part, this script doesn’t dwell on the gap in the characters’ ages. Here’s it’s more of an unspoken understanding. What I think this film does better is the time it gives. I really like that this time, the trope takes this time to allow Owen and Katherine to talk and enjoy each other’s company rather than throw them into something most movies would.
If there is something I find annoying, it’s the assumption that the viewer should buy all of the seemingly similar personalities and lifestyles of these characters. This said, I do understand that it has a place to tell the story. Regardless of this, and of the final act dramatics, Lonely Planet is good. There’s a universally understandable message of loneliness and the desire to find people who help heal this. The acting is good, too, and the story does this idea better than most I’ve seen, and I respect that.
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Content: this film gets an R-rating and is needed. There’s about 20 (maybe more) uses of the f-word (some less audible than others) and other more minor profanity like sh*t. There is a sensual scene about an hour into the film; lots of caressing, but the scene ends there. A few minutes later, there is a sex scene (against a wall). Lots of heavy making, touching and reactions, and we see them pulling at and removing clothes. There’s the usual “after” scene of them lying in bed. We see a couple in bed together 2-3 times, once she straddles him before he leaves to take a call. There’s a nude photo of someone seen briefly on a phone screen.
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