Like two premieres of this year, such as The Idea of Having You and A Family Affair, An Adventure in Morocco, the new movie from Netflix, continues the trend of romantic movies starring heterosexual couples with a age difference of more than two decades. With the particularity that here the older ones are always the women.

Based on the same premise, and despite having other similar points (the main characters have liberal professions, great financial independence, and are not in a stable relationship when they meet their new romantic interest), the movie starring Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth manages to differentiate itself from its predecessors with a quite different proposal.

It doesn't mean it's better. Nor worse.

Dern plays Katherine, a successful novelist who arrives at an exclusive writers' retreat in Morocco hoping to find the inspiration she needs to finish writing the novel she's been stuck on for two years.

There she meets Owen, a thirtysomething working in finance who is accompanying his girlfriend, a young woman whose first novel became a bestseller. Their loneliness becomes companionship, and what starts as a friendship turns into an individual journey of self-discovery and a romance that changes their lives.

There's no irresistible attraction here or chemistry that could serve as fuel to launch rockets. There's also no self-awareness of what others may say about their age difference, something that defines the other two movies we mentioned earlier, where they were world-famous.

An Adventure in Morocco is a slow-cooking, emotionally mature romantic comedy where the characters get to know each other little by little. They have long nighttime conversations where they listen, support each other, say the words the other needs at that moment, and aren't afraid to acknowledge their insecurities.

Owen has several doubts, as he feels he doesn't fit into his girlfriend's intellectual circle (and he doesn't). The Liam Hemsworths of the world also have feelings and can feel abandoned like Scarlett Johansson's character in Lost in Translation. 

The movie is signed by Susannah Grant, a writer and director you may recognize for being nominated for an Oscar with Erin Brockovich (and for five Emmys for the fabulous miniseries Believe Me), which sets a tone of maturity and serenity where conflicts are internal and mundane: there's no one or nothing getting in the way of Katherine and Owen. No ex-partner, no children, social class, work, distance, dreams to fulfill, betrayal, or society.

The walks through Morocco are colorful, Dern and Hemsworth are charming and have chemistry. The movie can be watched effortlessly and is a great plan for a quiet Saturday afternoon, but its dramatic progression is that of a healthy and resting heart's electrocardiogram. And that's not what we ask of a romantic movie. An Adventure in Morocco lacks spark.

*This article has been automatically translated using artificial intelligence