After watching the film ‘Bros’, I can go another thousand years without ever having to watch another romantic comedy ever again. Billy Eichner is so terrible, he ruined an entire genre of movies that I didn’t even care for it to begin with. But much like someone who’s too afraid to swim, you have to get back into the water.
George Clooney and Julia Roberts starring in a film seem like a throwback to the 1990s by itself but here we are in 2022 with their latest film. When looking at the trailer for the film “Tickets to Paradise” it’s easy to write this film off as a cheesy product from a borderline bygone era. At face value, this film could be an easily forgettable title, but after the last five weeks of cinema which has been the worst stretch in a decade, ‘Tickets to Paradise’ is a welcome change that’s actually pretty good.
‘Ticket to Paradise’ is a film about a divorced couple named David (Clooney) and Georgia (Roberts) who hate each other and regret everything about their marriage except their daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever). Lily goes on vacation to Bali in order to celebrate graduating from Law school and meets a young man named Gede (Maxime Bouttier) and gets engaged within a month of knowing each other.
David and Georgia disapprove as they see Lily throwing away her career for love and they form a truce to attempt to stop the wedding from taking place. They attempt to sabotage the wedding but also begin to mend fences with one another. Upset that their lives and their daughter’s life are going in different directions, David and Georgia are at a crossroads and need to come up with a solution sooner rather than later.
George Clooney and Julia Roberts have that old-school cinematic charm that used to be a major selling point with Hollywood. While the characters that they play are stubborn old exes, the duo has a genuine chemistry that makes the film work. The cast is likable with Kaitlyn Dever and Clooney being the standouts. However, the supporting characters aren’t as fleshed out as they need to be to help the quality of the film. Billie Lourd and Lucas Bravo are the two characters who suffer the most from being too one note to contribute anything to the film.
Director Ol Parker does a great job of taking the audience to a tropical paradise and visual escape of Bali. Cinematographer Ole Bratt Birkeland makes great use of a beautiful landscape and utilizes every inch of Bali making audiences jealous that they can’t live there instead.
‘Ticket to Paradise’ feels like a movie that was pulled straight from the early 2000s due to its lighthearted nature and colorful adventure. The film gives audiences something that they haven’t gotten for months, a quality rom-com, and also doubles as a quality family film. Along with the visual escape is a film that doesn’t wear out its welcome with a well-paced story.
In modern terms ‘Tickets to Paradise’ may feel like a Hallmark movie with a big budget. While the film has its flaws there really isn’t much here to hate in terms of production and content. Tickets to Paradise is the vacation film that we all need right now.
3/5
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