In Susannah Grant’s “Lonely Planet,” Laura Dern plays an important writer. You can tell because everyone says she’s an important writer. Also she’s usually writing something, not that we ever hear a word of it. Writers, you see, get all-expense paid trips to gorgeous retreats in Morocco, surrounded by other sexy writers, because all writers are sexy. They’re certainly not barely making ends meet and spending half their time chasing down late invoices.
“Lonely Planet” is a fantasy film. Not the kind with dragons and elves in it, but the implausible kind where everything is sexy and perfect. Even the problems in “Lonely Planet” are fabulous. Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere in Morocco, so you get free lunch with a nearby family with a fellow sexy traveler. Your sexy relationship is on the rocks but you’ve instantly made a deep, meaningful, very sexy connection with a sexily attractive and very successful person who happens to be in the sexy bungalow next to yours in a fabulous, sexy villa. You’ve reached a not-so-sexy existential crossroads in your career when Dern emerges from a swimming pool, leans in and asks you, “Thirsty?”
Films like “Lonely Planet” don’t exist to tell a profound story, they exist to give the audience a vacation from their problems. And also apparently to give the stars a vacation too, since this film treats Morocco like a paradise and no scene looks like it was hell to film.
Whether you want Dern or her sexy new friend played by Liam Hemsworth to fall in love with you in a sumptuous locale — or maybe you want both of them — you’ll get your wish for 94 minutes. If you want to believe the only problem writers have is that your free and extravagant honeymoon suite at a luxurious resort has a few plumbing problems, you’ll get that too. And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with it.
But since we must, let’s talk about the plot: Dern plays Katherine Loewe, a best-selling author who has just been kicked out of her farmhouse by her lover of 14 years. She’s way behind on her deadlines, and she just got an all-expense paid trip to Morocco. (I can relate to one of those things.) One of the other authors at the retreat is Lily (Diana Silvers, “The Killer”), who brought her hunky businessman boyfriend Owen along. Owen is played by Hemsworth, and he’s a very nice guy but he’s out of his element with these intellectuals. At a party game he’s given the clue “Pip” and can only think of Gladys Knight’s backup singers, so he’s roundly mocked for not reading Dickens even though that’s a perfectly decent interpretation and those snobby snobs should have known what he was talking about. Philistines.
Owen tries to be a good boyfriend, but Lily is trying to be a sexy writer and mingle with all the snooty types. Katherine is hermitting in her room so hard that none of the other writers even know she’s there. The two of them bond over their shared disinterest in all those other people, have a few exceptionally low-stakes tourist adventures, and gradually realize that they really, really, really want to boink each other. A lot.
It’s a story that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hallmark Christmas movie, if only it took place at Christmas and Morocco was Fictional Midwestern Town, USA. The difference is that Susannah Grant — an Oscar nominee for writing “Erin Brockovich,” who also directed the Jennifer Garner/Timothy Olyphant romance “Catch and Release” — has an R-rating to work with. Don’t get too excited, “Lonely Planet” doesn’t go the full “9 1/2 Weeks” on us. It just has one sex scene, fully clothed, and short enough that it could have been cut for time. That barely counts as “1/2 weeks.” But we’ll take our wins where we can get them. Still, “Lonely Planet” is undeniably on the steamier end of a genre which, for years now, has been sticking to a vow of absolute chastity.
“Lonely Planet” isn’t very interesting, but there’s nothing terribly wrong with it. Except a title that makes no sense, since the planet is bigger than Marrakech and the movie has nothing to do with the best-selling travel guides. Also there’s a climactic interview that crosses the line of action so often it would distract a viewer who didn’t even know what that expression means.
Hemsworth is beautiful and sweet and a bit of a doormat, but in a sexy “I could take care of him” kind of way. Dern doesn’t have any heavy lifting to do but she knows exactly what kind of movie she’s in and gives “Lonely Planet” everything it needs.
By the time they fall in love, Dern looks at Hemsworth like he’s the only man in the world, and inhales with lustful trepidation right before he’s about to kiss her. The story isn’t so hot. At least the leads are. That’s not enough to make “Lonely Planet” a good film, but it might be enough to get through all 94 minutes without clicking on something else instead. Maybe.
