Ticket to Paradise; Grade: C+
A Ticket to Paradise tells a story about a divorced couple named David (George Clooney) and Georgia (Julia Roberts), whom is partaking in their daughter Lily’s (Kaitlyn Dever) college graduation as she’s on her way to become a lawyer. While on her post grad trip to Bali: Lily meets a seaweed farmer named Gede (Maxime Bouttier), which both have experience love at first sight, which thirty seven days later they announce their engagement. Lily’s parents aren’t thrilled with her engagement announcement, as the divorced rivals make a pact to prevent Lily from going through this wedding.
A Ticket to Paradise resembles the likes of a couple rom coms that have been released this year: Marry Me and Father of the Bride. While I will say A Ticket to Paradise feels identical to Father of the Bride story wise, however all three films have a similar thing in common that all three of these films are all enjoyably average films, that have heart and comedy to them all… Not a bad thing to achieve, simply perfectly suitable for date night which I WANTED a date for this particularly film.
A Ticket to Paradise actually has quite a bit going for the film, that I simply understand why it’s actually doing fairly well at the box office. Has a story wise that while isn’t necessarily unique, but still delivers a fairly told story that follows the true value in romance, while displaying the importance in communication and how it can rebuild a broken item. David and Georgia have been going through a major confrontation, where once love birds now simply hate their guts. What both sides seem to lack on is simply communication… Through the brokenness of both individuals, majority of spitefulness their currently on is not necessarily directed primarily on them, it’s actually directed on themselves as a whole. If both would’ve simply communicated their problems: They could’ve at least been solid friends, possibly revive their relationship as the main key in a healthy relationship is communication.
I felt the comedy material was effective in several moments, as I gotten a few laugh out moments while partaking this film. I also felt the cast did a solid job as a whole, as it looked like everyone was having an enjoyable time within making of this film. It’s dope to see George Clooney back on the big screen, his presence was heavily missed as I prefer him acting than him trying to be a film maker. Clooney and Roberts chemistry was simply lovely, they work really well as arch rivals and coming together to a lighthearted partnership, loved the beer pong scene especially.
The film does drag on quite a bit in several occasions, especially the ending which felt like it was taking FOREVER to conclude. Surely the final shot makes up for it at least as I thought that was adorable, but surely a good chunk of the third act didn’t need to be stretched that further, I mean we have a marriage proposal that shouldn’t take three whole scenes to complete. I felt they under utilized Lily’s friend Wren (Billie Lourd), it felt like she was going to be a nice comedic relief character, but it turns out she really felt irrelevant to the whole story just about.
Overall, A Ticket to Paradise was enjoyably average. I recommend checking this one out, can be a nice date night or girls night out. Considering I didn’t have a date to experience this film with: I at least had a whole theater to myself… So that was nice. -Mitch Smietana