There's nothing quite like a luxurious jaunt to a sun-soaked locale to bring folk together, as we've learned from Destination Wedding, Ticket To Paradise, Anyone But You, and oh so many other movies over the years. With upcoming Netflix resort romance Lonely Planet, it looks like writer-director Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich) is set to add a little more depth to the ordinarily comedy heavy sub-genre. Here, Laura Dern stars as Katherine, a novelist whose Moroccan retreat to conquer her writer's block puts her on a collision course with Liam Hemsworth's Owen, a younger man facing his own crisis of confidence. As the great Avril Lavigne once observed, "He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?" Well, check out the trailer below and see for yourself how sparks fly between the pair:
From nervy car meet-cute, to the gradual excavation of their shared baggage (he's got a girlfriend; Wikipedia tells him she's got a man, too), to things getting decidedly more hot and heavy by their Moroccan retreat's pool, Dern and Hemsworth's chemistry is palpable here already. And what's more, this looks to be a more nuanced take on age-gap romance from Grant, with the film's emphasis seemingly placed more on where Katherine and Owen are at in their lives mentally and emotionally than anything else. As Dern put it in a statement given to Netflix on her attraction to the movie, "The dynamic between the younger man and the older, established writer intrigued me because it’s not just about romance — it’s about finding someone who truly sees and understands you, which is something deeply human and relatable.”
Also along for the intercontinental love-in are Diana Silvers (Booksmart), Ben Youcef (Munich), Bellina Logan (Palm Royale), Gustav Dyekjær Giese (The Quiet Ones), and Dillon Lane (The Guilty). We'll find out whether Katherine and Owen's summer lovin' lasts or if it's destined to leave them both (sun)burned when Lonely Planet comes to Netflix on 11 October. But c'mon folks, our Dino Girl and The Witcher's new monster hunter? It's a match made in heaven!