A divorced couple teams up and travels to Bali to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago.
Georgia and David Cotton (Julia Roberts and George Clooney) are a long-divorced couple who can’t be anywhere near each other without a loud, bitter fight erupting. Their daughter’s unexpected and unwanted wedding announcement forces them to face off on the beautiful island of Bali, where daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) will remain with her seaweed farmer husband after their marriage. Oh, but never fear, dear Mom and Dad have cooked up sure-fire plans to sabotage everything and drag their daughter away from all the love and light on the tiny island.
“Ticket to Paradise” reunites two of Hollywood’s best-liked and best-followed actors: Julia Roberts as the ex-wife Georgia and George Clooney as the ever glum, thorny ex-husband, David. The script, co-written by director Ol Parker and David Pipski, unfortunately, doesn’t offer these two actors much of a challenge. Roberts and Clooney more or less sail through the story effortlessly. The characters are stock and shallow, thanks to Pol and Pipski, and the actors have no opportunity to develop their characters beyond what the storyline delineates. No spoiler is intended, but I found the ending shocking in its lack of believability. I can imagine at least two other possible endings, more in tune with Roberts and Clooney’s established characters. Still, Pol gives the audience no warning and no real reason to accept the finale of a pretty much trite story. The premise of the plot line is fine in and of itself but never develops in a believable way the audience can buy into.
Kaitlyn Dever, as Lily, the errant daughter who is throwing away a lucrative law career she has just earned the right to begin, is just really a plain Jane, not in looks but in her character. She is such a faint personality that she seems ghostly and almost transparent. To her parents’ dismay and disbelief, there isn’t time for the film to truly dive into her relationship with the handsome Balinese seaweed farmer she has shucked everything for.
Lucas Bravo as Paul, Georgia Cotton’s latest “squeeze,” is another stock character. Yes, this is (supposed to be) a comedy. And comedies are rife with stock characters, to an extent. However, in this film, we, the audience, should care and perhaps even identify with an ex-husband and ex-wife who finally learn to take some measure of joy in the good times they shared and the wonderful daughter they made together. That escapes me in any meaningful way in “Ticket to Paradise.”
Just a word here about the costuming. The islanders were fine, and Clooney’s character was also fine. But why, why, oh why, did costume designer Lizzy Gardiner put Roberts in rompers and jumpsuits that look almost military in design, not to mention just plain ugly? I also was amazed that Roberts agreed to wear most of her wardrobe, especially the black tights outfit that showed off her not-so-shapely legs. Not so shapely as to have had a body double for her lower torso and legs in the well-known poster advertising “Pretty Woman.”
The film had some moments, to be sure. Clooney playing soccer with a group of island youngsters brought to mind that he has five-year-old twins, and that scenario probably has played out for real from time to time at home. Much of the filming took place on an island resort off the coast of Queensland, Australia. It is beautiful for sure, and I was reminded of the song from “South Pacific”: “Bali Hi will call you. Any night, any day. Here am I, your special island. Come away, come away.” That’s the theme of Pol’s piece, but it is never fully developed, making the ending so trite and unbelievable.
In Theaters Friday, October 21st
