Ticket to Paradise, directed and co-written by Ol Parker, is a breezy, enjoyable romantic comedy while it lasts, thanks to a pair of reuniting Hollywood megastars whose charisma lights up the screen, a picturesque location that yields a stream of hypnotic visuals, and a pleasant, if unremarkable, storyline.
Ticket to Paradise, crammed with clichés and trite thrills, gives little that will stick with us forever.
However, the return of George Clooney and Julia Roberts to the big screen after a six-year break helps the picture overcome its formulaic packaging and adds up to a near-full complement of fun, frolic, and romance.
The two stars, who also serve as executive producers for the film, work tirelessly to keep the concoction afloat. They are almost there. The team glides through a film that does not put them under any strain. Every time Ticket to Paradise looks to be drifting out at sea and courting disaster, the leading couple just steps into the gap.
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The remainder is taken care of by the background. Bali is postcard-perfect as seen through the lens of cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland. When Clooney and Roberts ramp up the volume and get in the way of the enthralling view, they take some of the focus away from the grandeur of the location but also help to significantly enhance its attractiveness.
Clooney’s movements on the dance floor are described as “dinosaur moves” by one of the film’s younger characters. That is clearly an exaggeration. But, yeah, it’s not only the occasional hip-swinging, but also the overall attitude of back-patting goodwill that pervades the picture, giving it an old-fashioned vibe, but in a pleasant, vibrant sense.
Of course, it takes a lot of local arracks and an impromptu game of ping-pong – which is based on a drinking competition David and Georgia used to have in their teens – to get the two protagonists in the mood to go back in time. They accomplish this with gusto.
Architect David Cotton (Clooney) and art gallerist Georgia Cotton (Roberts) have been divorced for two decades when we first meet them. They can’t stand the sight of one other because they’ve been apart for so long. They reunite after years apart during their daughter’s graduation ceremony but show no signs of letting go.
When the divorced couple learns that their only daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) is set to marry a man she met on the island she is vacationing with all-weather friend Wren Butler, they go to Bali together (Billie Lourd). The girl is a law graduate who is ready to abandon her job before it has even begun. Her parents believe she is deserving of better.
Lily has fallen in love with Gede (Maxime Bouttier), a Balinese seaweed farmer who, as he rapidly realizes, must overcome barriers that David and Georgia are willing to place in his road.
The film’s focus, as expected, is not so much on the young lovers as it is on David and Georgia dealing with a history they do not want to be reminded of.
Georgia’s lover Paul (Lucas Bravo), a commercial pilot with blue eyes and a lot of charisma, arrives in Bali intending to propose to her. Can Georgia rekindle her youth’s zeal and give love another chance? Where does David fit into all of this?
The answers provided by Ticket to Paradise may not surprise anyone, but the ups and downs that the older couple experience as they struggle to keep themselves from bickering and focus on what they are in Bali for – to sabotage their daughter’s relationship with Gede – keep the audience invested in their fate.
On their journey to the finale, the two couples in Ticket to Paradise do a lot of hemming and hawing as their relationships – one has run its course, the other has just begun – have to contend with both good and bad weather. The combined effect of the two arcs is far from even. And there is the film for you – both archaic and contemporary.
The two younger performers in the ensemble, Indonesian-French actors Maxime Bouttier and Kaitlyn Dever, do more than their fair share to let the picture stand on its own. They give a depth of liveliness to Ticket in Paradise, playing off nicely with the tremendous attraction that Clooney and Roberts bring to the table as two young people in love navigating stumbling hurdles, not of their own choosing.
Lucas Bravo, who plays Chef Gabriel in the Netflix series Emily in Paris, is also no pushover.
Despite being burdened with what is plainly an underdeveloped character, he refuses to be carried away by the huge star power that propels Ticket to Paradise.
David recalls his joyful years with Georgia by saying: “It was unbelievable at first. Then it became serious.” The opposite is true with Ticket to Paradise. The picture begins in the real world, with a man and woman who have moved on and a young daughter who is training for a legal profession. It concludes at “the most beautiful spot on earth,” which portrays a dreamy, fairy-tale atmosphere full of improbabilities.
Ticket to Paradise is a bright and buoyant trip that manages to conjure up its own brand of pleasant miracles, with George Clooney and Julia Roberts turning back the clock and clearly enjoying themselves in the process.
