Before I dive into the horrors of Netflix’s latest rom-com, “Lonely Planet,” I must ask you to please put Liam Hemsworth’s hotness aside. His good looks must not distract us from the finance bro that he plays in the movie. Picture him much shorter, balding, and never without a Patagonia vest. Once you hold this image in your mind’s eye, we may proceed.
*SPOILERS AHEAD, DUH*
Okay, so “The Lonely Planet” stars Mr. Hemsworth and Laura Dern, who play Owen Brophy and Katherine Loewe, respectively. Owen is a private equity guy in his thirties whose entire personality revolves around taking one (1) single phone call a day to talk to his client about buying land to mine for coal. (Yes, you’re supposed to root for this guy.) He’s at a writer’s retreat in Morocco to support — I use that word loosely — his 20-something-year-old girlfriend and new bestselling author, Lily Kemp (played by Diana Silvers). Initially, Lily is intimidated by her industry peers but is eager to get to know everyone and absorb the experience. Katherine, on the other hand, is a more established author in her late 50s who tells people to “shut it” if they talk to her while she’s typing her manuscript. She spends most of her time stressed about finding somewhere quiet to write (while in a beautiful haven with plenty of quiet space?!). Laura Dern is not like other girls; she loves writing in “dumpy closets” and is just desperate to overcome her writer’s block.
The two find themselves thrown together on a day trip while Lily spends time with the others on the retreat. Owen complains about being Lily’s “personal shopper” and buys like a million metal stars to decorate their apartment back home. (The stars are never referenced again, so don’t ask about them.) This man is a PLUS ONE! Like, shut up and enjoy your free Moroccan vacation.
Despite making jokes at his girlfriend’s expense, Katherine isn’t giving “fuck me” vibes just yet (shocker). Back at the retreat, Owen is roped into playing charades with the others. Unfortunately for Mr. Private Equity, all of the options are literary references because, I repeat, IT’S A WRITER’S RETREAT. Lily makes a joke about him not reading anything but Sports Illustrated, and he leaves in a rage. Katherine comes to find him, and the two get drunk together, sharing childhood nicknames. Owen was known by his peers as The Big O. Yep, this guy was the high school quarterback and popular with the cheerleaders. JIC, it wasn’t clear through the many sports metaphors he makes throughout the movie. What a guy!
The next day, he’s still moping about Lily’s charades joke, so naturally, when she shares she got a massive book deal, he offers a weak “congrats.” Can you blame him? She lightly teased him in front of strangers that he didn’t care about. Of course, he’s going to pout during the biggest moment in his girlfriend’s career. She dedicated her first book to him (!!!), but she’s just not giving him the attention he deserves.
The fighting between them gets worse and worse. Lily calls him out for refusing to feign interest in her successes and “core person” stuff (art, music, books, literally anything not finances). He immediately gets drunk and tries to sleep with Laura Dern. Except, oops, she calls him a kid as he leans in to kiss her — because ew? — and she’s like “damn” I just ruined my chance to fuck this guy. And that’s literally the only acknowledgement of their age gap. (I guess the Big Little Lies actress got a tip from her co-star about jumping on the MILF train that’s taken off in Hollywood this year.) The next day Owen and Lily officially split when he finds out she slept with another dude at the retreat. I think this is supposed to make the audience feel like Owen’s behavior is justified but I was just relieved Lily had some enjoyable experience at this retreat.
I need you guys to watch Lonely Planet so I have more hate tweets to ❤️ pic.twitter.com/r3JFKvuYyS
— Melanie Whyte (she/her) (@MelanieJWhyte) October 12, 2024
Owen runs to Katherine to ask her to run away with him. Despite Katherine literally being Lily in 30 years — THEY’RE BASICALLY THE SAME PERSON, BUDDY — he seems to like everything in Katherine that he hated about Lily. (Make it make sense.) The rest of the movie is about them having sex across Morocco. While I’m all for steamy sex scenes, it’s alluded that Owen basically fucks the writer’s block out of her. That’s why they call him The Big-O, I guess. When Katherine’s laptop is stolen — and two years of her life go down the drain because she never backed up her manuscript (?!) — she rushes to leave without him. He’s crushed that another woman would put her career before him. (The incels on Reddit must be shaking.) A year or two later, they run into each other in NYC when she’s promoting her new book that’s inspired by his sports metaphors. I wish I was joking. Her book is called “The Swing Route,” which, according to him, is a football play about “finding hope in a big mess.” That’s right, this man has two books dedicated to him. Cue heavy makeout in the streets and roll credits.
After sitting 94 minutes of all of that nonsense, I was left feeling betrayed by the mighty Laura Dern for leading me astray. (Oh, and don’t worry, I checked: this movie was directed and written by a woman.). Frankly, I’m confused as to why we would ever find Liam Hemsworth’s character desirable. Instead, his character reads like a guy at the center of a bad Hinge date story that your friend loves to tell at dinner parties. The only good thing I have to say about the movie is that the setting is FOMO-worthy and that Liam Hemsworth is indeed “arm candy.” However, the new movie has landed on the top 3 global charts just a few days after release, so I am looking forward to scrolling through meme reactions in the days to come. I’d say that it’s worth rage-watching, but unfortunately, that’s just not true.
