Review of Lonely Planet, directed by Susannah Grant

As someone who worked as a film critic for a bit, and now run this blog as a part-time job, I often end up thinking about how I can diversify the content I’m working with and consuming. Centering global perspectives has been something I championed, and I continue wanting to do, but lately I’m realizing diversity also comes from the kinds of movies I’m watching too.

So I’ve been trying to bust outside of my comfort zone while I can! That means for me watching more movies that I typically would not go for, so when I saw that Lonely Planet was being added to the Netflix catalogue, I kind of shrugged my shoulders and told myself I should go for it.

A few days after its release, when I am now typing this, I had free time on a Monday morning so I pressed play on Netflix. With a run time that clocks in just a little over an hour and a half, I enjoyed my breakfast on the couch as I watched this. And man this was an interesting ride for me.

Let’s get into the review before I start rambling too much in just the introduction, shall we?

At a retreat for writers, love brews among a novelist and a guy who didn’t want to join his partner here.

Our female lead in this movie is Katherine, who is a successful novelist down on her luck lately. She’s arrived in Morocco at the start of this movie to attend a writers’ retreat at a resort, and she accepted this spot last minute. It doesn’t help though that her luggage was lost somewhere in-between New York and Morocco, and a long relationship is failing.

So in some ways, she’s escaping the pressure of having to move out and start her life over again without this partner. She also has a tight deadline to meet for her next novel, which is why she has also come this far. Back home, there’s nowhere quiet to go and just write.

At the same time, a younger novelist, Lily, has arrived with her boyfriend Owen to the resort. She’s only published one novel, but she’s a huge fan of Katherine’s work and wants her to know that once she arrives onto the resort. However, Owen doesn’t seem to know much about literature, and needs to take business calls frequently while he’s here.

This doesn’t click well with Lily, who is annoyed that he constantly is dipping out of conversations to take a call, nor does he seem interested in being here. Back home, he has a big financing deal to sort through, which is why he’s been doing this business while on a vacation.

They start fighting more throughout the movie because of this, creating more friction as the plot continues forward. At one point, Katherine meets Owen, and then the very next day after meeting they are placed in the same excursion. She wants the ride to it to be silent, as she wanted the world to be quiet when she came here, but once they arrive at their destination, she asks Owen to join her.

They start talking, and when they try to return back to the resort, their car stops working properly. Their driver calls his brother, who brings them to the family’s home. But back at the hotel, all the writers gather and play a game, and Owen is made to feel like he doesn’t belong there nor is he intelligent. Worst of all, Lily participates in this.

He flees into the gardens, and Katherine eventually emerges out there too. Katherine invites him into her room after learning he doesn’t have the key to his room, and they continue chatting. Owen apparently looked her up, and Katherine begins accurately guessing facts about his past.

Morning arrives. Owen and Lily create another fight when he doesn’t react to her book deal news, and she accuses him of being jealous. He then calls her out for the night before, and she leaves, saying he can be negative if he wants to. He then gets food poisoning, and Katherine also doesn’t go. When they’re talking, she admits her partner thought she was incapable of love.

Their relationship progresses from there, just as things with Lily completely fall apart. Owen decides to go out on an adventure and asks Katherine to join him, and when they go off and wander, they take it the next step romantically. However, her laptop with her writing is stolen, and she didn’t think to back it up.

Katherine goes back to New York after that and finishes her book. A year later, Owen sees her across a crowd in a bar, and he says hi to her. As he’s leaving with his friends, she comes back up to him, says she’s been thinking about him all this time, and the movie ends with them kissing.

Overall Thoughts

As a writer myself, I was curious as to how the Morocco setting played into this, but, honestly, I feel like the fact the movie was set in Morocco could have been completely avoided as a plot point. It doesn’t play a huge role, and I would have rather seen it do so. Representation is cool, is it not?

Anyways, I didn’t care for this movie. I also feel like I’ve seen these kinds of movies before, especially when it comes to the fact one character is a writer struggling with their work. This didn’t add anything new to the conversation, and the characters and dialogue felt flat overall to me.

The romance, which I assume is a core part of this movie, also felt pretty static. Nothing had to happen up until the end for the sake of plot really, but there was no chemistry between the two, making it fairly unbelievable to me. Owen also felt like someone who just existed—I didn’t know much about him in general.

That said, if this is your thing and you love it, great! Taste is so subjective, and neither of us are wrong. Go off and enjoy it, no judgement. Or if you’re interested in the plot and haven’t seen, go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.

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