Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Netflix

Romanticism is about fantasy. We may never get the sweetest meeting of our wildest dreams, but the fictional people we see in romantic TV shows and movies experience satisfaction through awkward fumbling, blushing discomfort, and humble, unexpected flattery. While these fantasies vary in size and scope, what if a humble Italian housewife met one? National Geographic Photographer? What if your overworked assistants put you in a better mood? – The name of the game this year is the “age gap” romance, in which women over 40 are seduced by men who are, well, slightly younger.

Anne Hathaway fell in love with the charms of fake boy bander Nicholas Galitzine Your idea; Nicole Kidman learned to live, laugh, and love from Zac Efron playing himself (so to speak). A family affair; and we had Carol Kane’s quiet flirtation and platonic romance with her former student-turned-cantor, played by Jason Schwartzman Between the temples and the unpalatable stepmother-and-stepson romance of Catherine Breillat’s Last summer. These lyrics play – sometimes gently, sometimes harshly – with the stakes of a not entirely forbidden but slightly taboo matter. And everyone’s asking a different version of “What if?” Now we have the worst of them all, daring to ask: What if you were having a bad time at a writer’s residency in Morocco and the only person who understood you would be a private equity guy who hates his girlfriend? Whose fantasy is The?

This is the premise of Susannah Grant Lonely planetwhich appeared on Netflix last week. Starring Laura Dern as Katherine and Liam Hemsworth as Owen, the two find themselves in cynical loneliness on an exclusive and selective writing vacation in Morocco. Katherine, like Hathaways Idea from you The character Solène (remember “Solène”?) is a bitter divorcee who is distracted by finishing a manuscript, just like Brooke in Kidman A family affair. Although writers’ retreats are about socializing—group dinners, literary socializing—she wants nothing to do with it and blames her fancy room and everyone else there. She’s there to get them work Completed; Is that no one else?

Well, fortunately there is another person who is there to do the work, but that work is private equity and asset management. Owen appears as the plus point of Lily (Diana Silvers), a successful young novelist who is à la Sally Rooney (whose new novel intermezzoby the way, Also has an age difference). Owen is there for emotional support, but also as part of the loosely agreed-upon compromise that he can continue his financial machinations, implemented via vague texts that say things like “Is the deal going to happen?” This immediately annoys Lily. Doesn’t he want to play charades? Doesn’t he want to talk to writers about their books? Won’t he ask how she’s doing with her writing? No – he has to do business! And to his dismay, no one respects that. In fact, the other authors seem to do that reject private equity; Do you have heard of something like that absurd?

The fact that neither Katherine nor Owen are forced to accept the social contract of the residence is one of several reasons Lonely planet reeks of a kind of nastiness not found in this year’s age-gap romance novels. While those other films had strange concerns about their central relationships – the women often worry about how their bodies have aged, while Hathaway’s Solène compares herself to the groupies of a fake boy band and Kidman’s Brooke struggles to find a stylish outfit – This film eschews any pretense of age-related scandal (yay), so the romantic leads can instead look, er, bored when they talk to each other. They share something that doesn’t necessarily mean isolation or even loneliness, but rather a shared avoidance and pessimism. Although Katherine and Owen resent their colleagues, the film never makes it clear what might make a writer’s retreat so isolating. Katherine is “withdrawn,” resents the amenities offered to her, and shrinks into smaller and smaller workspaces to find some peace and quiet. This is considered the more dignified path compared to Lily’s incessant partying, networking, and dancing. For all her supposed talents, Owen’s girlfriend is portrayed as an unpleasant complainer whose behavior is modeled so that we don’t care if Owen cheats – let alone that she cheats Also Scammer with a writer who we learn has written “a beautiful memoir about his time as a child soldier in Libya.” Not that Owen would be interested at all, as he and Lily told us he doesn’t really like reading!

Lonely planet Had the film had a sense of humor, it might have seemed like a satire of self-serious and irritating writers, but Grant’s script moves along at a glacial pace, with the same events happening over and over again. Lily will invite Owen to do something; he says no; In his exile he always ends up with Katherine. Their shared experiences are a classic romantic vacation comeback – a car breaking down in the middle of the desert, an unexpected shopping date together – but all they talk about is how they don’t fit in. Neither is particularly keen on making the other the object of their affection; They’re just the only two who seem to do that receive It. Not only is it not fun to watch, it feels generally mean-spirited: these are two characters who could only love each other as a last resort to combat boredom.

If such a situation is meant to be a fantasy situation for Dern’s Katherine, who is grieving her previous marriage and uncomfortable in social situations, Owen is anything but a snag: He’s charmless, uninterested, and oddly sensitive when it comes to private equity , which he apparently also knows is bad. (He briefly argues that doing private equity on “clean coal” is better than people who have no electricity at all, and then quits his job for no ethical reason other than the fact that he apparently gets too many text messages .) As a singular affair with mitigation Under certain circumstances, their advertising is hardly for sale. As the end of the film approaches and he returns to her after six months, it’s hard to imagine what’s going through both of their minds. The Person? Again? Despite it? Neither of these characters gives the other much to think about, let alone love. There is no danger or energy in their affair; The whole film is surprisingly risk-free. They don’t actually care if they end up together. And neither do we.