Over the last decade, filmmaker Ol Parker has made a name for himself by taking A-list stars, sending them to an idyllic holiday destination, and having them explore matters of life and love. The writer of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, and writer-director of Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, applies the same basic principles to Ticket To Paradise – a rare, throwbacky major-studio romcom that boasts beautiful people in beautiful places as its main raison d’être, while sneaking in deeper notions around familial expectations and intergenerational differences.
This time, the beautiful people are George Clooney and Julia Roberts – teaming up for the fifth time on the big screen, a double-whammy of movie star mega-wattage – as divorcées David and Georgia, a couple whose acrimonious split finds them only able to (just about) communicate when it concerns their daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever). The beautiful place is Bali, where Lily has gone travelling with best friend Wren (Billie Lourd, in a welcome Booksmart reunion with Dever) after finishing her law degree – before swiftly getting engaged to dashing Balinese guy Gede (Maxime Bouttier), much to her parents’ concern. Remembering how their own idealised connection collapsed under real-life strains, they set out to thwart Lily’s nuptials. What are the chances that their own spark might reunite in the process?
Clooney and Roberts display all-out charisma both in their snippy sniping, and when in cahoots with one another.
If you never doubt for a second where Ticket To Paradise is going, the journey there is solidly constructed. The traditional rom and com elements are present and correct, the script peppered with the kinds of humourous antics and goofy setpieces the genre demands: a mission to steal the loved-up couple’s rings; a parents-vs-kids beer pong match with the beer substituted for a local eye-watering spirit; perilous encounters with violent dolphins and a venomous snake. But as with his previous work, Parker – who co-writes with Daniel Pipski, as well as directing – brings in a solid amount of character drama too, affording time to explore why David and Georgia’s love crashed and burned so spectacularly, fleshing out Lily and Gede’s maybe-not-that-crazy-after-all romantic connection, and building in believable concerns about history threating to repeat itself.
That level of substance means that Ticket To Paradise isn’t quite the all-out screwball jaunt that the trailers present – and though depth to the characterisation is welcome, it feels at odds with moments of artificiality in the filmmaking. This is a film where Roberts emerges with salon-fresh hair after a night out in a Balinese jungle, and where – for all the golden beaches of Australia, where it was filmed – a number of shots feel oddly-lit and composited, the actors visually disconnected from their lavish environment. Plus, its wilful propensity for cheese – particularly a final freeze-frame – occasionally veers into unintended comedy.
But the real draw of Ticket To Paradise is the bickering, bubbling chemistry of Clooney and Roberts set against sun-kissed climes – and there it absolutely delivers, the duo displaying all-out charisma both in their snippy sniping, and when in cahoots with one another. Their gradual reconnection becomes genuinely touching, and even though you know what’s coming, the film finds its way there effectively. If it’s not a ticket to all-out cinematic paradise, it is at least a ticket back to a genre that’s vanishingly rare on the big screen these days.
