Curator Watchlist
A glossy, low-chemistry romance built around a familiar age-gap fantasy and expat-writer-retreat setup, but the execution is widely judged as flat, underwritten, and emotionally inert. The appeal is mostly surface-level: Morocco scenery, a few attractive production details, and Laura Dern’s presence.
Where to watch: Buy
Thu · 1h 36m
Director: Susannah Grant
Starring: Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth, Diana Silvers
At an idyllic writers retreat in Morocco, a newly single novelist finds an unexpected connection with a younger man who's reevaluating his life choices.
Susannah Grant
Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth, Diana Silvers
A glossy, low-chemistry romance built around a familiar age-gap fantasy and expat-writer-retreat setup, but the execution is widely judged as flat, underwritten, and emotionally inert. The appeal is mostly surface-level: Morocco scenery, a few attractive production details, and Laura Dern’s presence.
Lonely Planet has the ingredients of an adult romance: a sun-drenched Moroccan setting, a newly single novelist, and a younger man who seems like he might awaken something in her. In practice, it plays more like a mood board than a movie, with the relationship never quite finding heat, wit, or emotional specificity.
The film’s biggest problem is that it mistakes atmosphere for drama. The retreat setting promises introspection and artistic friction, but the script keeps everything at a polite distance, leaving the leads stranded in a story that feels thin and mechanical. Even the central dynamic, which should be provocative or messy, lands as oddly bloodless.
There are occasional pleasures in the location work and in seeing a seasoned performer carry material that gives her very little to do. But for most viewers, the experience will be less “forbidden romance” than a generic prestige-streaming diversion that never justifies its premise.
Ren (2★) · 769 likes
Laura Dern following in Nicole Kidman and Anne Hathaway’s footsteps
justinwuah (1★) · 557 likes
what's up with all these cougar films in 2024??? omg enough
theshivroy (0.5★) · 454 likes
Netflix Movie (derogatory).
jackmandu55 (2.5★) · 403 likes
nooooooo my hot girlfriend smokes weed, writes fiction and wants to have sex with me noooooo laura dern save meeee
júlia (1.5★) · 370 likes
who blackmailed laura dern into doing this
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age-gap romance, writer retreat, midlife reinvention, expat privilege, travel escapism, creative burnout, self-discovery, relationship dissatisfaction
romance, drama, streaming original, travel setting, midlife crisis, age-gap relationship, writer protagonist, low-key melodrama, prestige-lite, sun-drenched visuals