#MovieReview: Ticket to Paradise, the return of the rom-com? [Watch]
The movie follows Clooney and Roberts, an acrimonious divorced couple whose daughter (Kaitlyn Dever) travels to Bali after graduating from university.
Ticket to Paradise is a true-blue romantic comedy that feels straight out of 2005 – and that’s a good thing.
George Clooney and Julia Roberts are back together for a will-they-won’t-they outing at a beautiful tropical location, and it is exactly what you would expect.
But this is two of the most indelibly charming screen presences of the past 30 years in full movie star mode, and provides perfect lighthearted escapism.
From When Harry Met Sally in 1989 until the late 2000s, the romantic comedy was a defining fixture of the box office, but fell to the wayside when studios stopped green-lighting mid-budget movies.
Conventional wisdom now holds that spending $250-million on one superhero movie for a return of $500-million is easier than earning the same dividends from 20 smaller productions.
It makes sense really, but completely sidelined the $20-million adult dramas, rom-coms and flat out comedies which dominated the 90s and early aughts.
Ticket to Paradise is far from flawless and is packed as full of well worn tropes as you could imagine, but sometimes that is all you want.
Better that than taking the book club to watch Thor 19, no?
Mild spoilers to follow
The movie follows Clooney and Roberts, an acrimonious divorced couple whose daughter (Kaitlyn Dever) travels to Bali after graduating from university.
Dever falls in love with a local seaweed farmer and the two become engaged, causing the parents to fly there to convince her not to make the same mistake that they once did.
They hatch a plan to break the young couple apart.
It is truly clichéd of course, but never cynical and the fact that it leans into the schmaltz works in its favour.
And when you have two iconic leads playing on their own movie histories, it elevates Ticket to Paradise beyond the Hallmark movie it could easily have become.
Hopefully the box office returns prompt more of these. It’s easy to forget how fun it is to laugh in a packed theatre.
Rated 13 for some language.
3/5.
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