Title: The Loneliest Planet
Director: Julia Loktev
The Loneliest Planet is pretty much the Seinfeld of cinema: 113 minutes about nothing.
Following a young married couple (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg), as they backpack around the Georgian countryside (Middle East sector), this is essentially a quaint collection of home video/documentary footage. The opening shot, which solidifies why this is Not Rated, is just plain weird; but does the job in making you wonder where this is heading.
Unfortunately, it heads nowhere fast (though painfully slow).
Maneuvering around the wilderness and spending most nights in a tent and bathing in streams, the only other intriguing factor, besides the above mentioned opening shot, is how horny these two are for each other early on (a couple of graphic and suggestive sexual moments). From there, they hire a local guide (Bidzina Gujabidze) who is with them for the remaining two-thirds of the flick.
And that’s it.
The three characters are not interesting or engaging. Plus, about half of the dialogue is foreign, yet there are no subtitles (at least not on my screener). And when English is spoken, the couple mumbles through the worthless and/or trivial banter. Sure the script may be going for an authentic take on an adventurous duo “living free” on a random rural vacation. But there isn’t anything interjected in addition to the boring chronicle of documentary video. It’s like watching the Travel Channel for Dummies. Hell, it would be more entertaining to watch two toddlers walk around a giant fenced in backyard that just has an old rusty swing set.
A subtle jolt does happen halfway through; and the goal of it was too change the relationship dynamics of all three characters, since the filmmakers were cognizant that their monotone screenplay was just on a bland loop. But this sequence fails to enhance anything at all. And everything from that point is sadly still uneventful.
More often than not, one can take pleasure in the landscape shots, which is to reference the cinematography, in these types of road flicks. Aside from one or two wide-shots, this mechanic just seemed unprepared and thrown together in a haphazard fashion – similar to how this review probably reads; due to the fact that this product does not give much for yours truly to work with (could write more fluently reviewing a thirty-second State Farm commercial).
Oh, and the only amusing element about this – since there was a Seinfeld show comparison to start this sucker off – is that this product is labeled as a “thriller.” Eh, not so much (as in, at all).
While you can possibly appreciate and maybe understand what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with this direction, it just doesn’t translate into a rewarding watch on any level (artistically, entertaining, ponderous, etc.).
Technical: D+
Story: F
Acting: C
Overall: D (for Dud)
