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It’s often said that a movie that’s fun to make is never going to be great.Well, George Clooney and Julia Roberts look like they’re having fun making the Bali set “Tickets to heaven.”
Directed and co-written by Olpark (“Mamma Mia! We’re Here Again”), the film isn’t the first to star Roberts and Clooney, but it takes a moment to realize they’re on screen together Time has mostly been limited to a few scenes from the Eleven Oceans movie and Jodie Foster’s less-than-memorable 2016 thriller “Money monster.”
Given their friendship and natural rapport, you can imagine they must have had half a dozen rom-coms in the past. Instead, it’s a reminder that Clooney is often compared to Cary Grant, and when he dabbles in comedy, he mostly stays with the Archers, the Coen brothers registered. Unlike Grant — whose on-screen romances included such luminaries as Erin Dunn, Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell — Clooney didn’t often find the perfect match. Vera Farmiga in “In the Air” and Meryl Streep in “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” are worth mentioning.Really, Clooney’s best chemistry was in 1998’s “Invisible Places” with Jennifer Lopez – A Blooming Love In the dark car trunk.
Tickets to Heaven, which hit theaters Thursday, is a more old-fashioned proposition: a film strictly — and without apology — built on the charisma of its two stars.
Roberts and Clooney play Georgia and David Cotton, divorcing parents whose daughter Lily (Kaitlyn Dever) just graduated from law school. Just before she takes a demanding job at a top company, Lily embarks on a trip to Bali (where Australia doubles up on the Indonesian island) with her best friend Raine (Billy Lord). Lily immediately fell in love with a local seaweed farmer named Gerd (Maxime Bouttier), and they decided to get married within a few days.
For Georgia and David, such a wedding was a level four fire. They flew straight out to sabotage it, a plan that unearthed many of their own unanswered questions about the divorce. “Nothing lasts forever,” David hissed to his son-in-law. This is an evil alliance. They quarrel so often that it is clear that their feelings for each other are still strong. I know this can be shocking. Maybe sit down before reading the next sentence, but yes, the events of “Tickets to Heaven” will bring them closer again. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
OK, so Parker’s film, which he co-created with Daniel Pipsky, isn’t about reinventing the wheel. Predictability is part of the allure of Tickets to Paradise, and you can’t say it didn’t work out. Familiar beats are played sincerely. The cringe-worthy late-night dancefloor sequence accompanying House of Pain’s “Jump Around” arrived like a prescribed ritual.
There were other traditions that filled the “ticket to paradise” when the Cotton People wrestled with and inevitably succumbed to Balinese culture, but none more so than rom-com customs. For me, “Tickets to Heaven” probably — like many recent entries in the genre — benefited greatly from the passage of a script by an interesting person. There’s not as much ludicrousness here as you might think, because the “Ticket to Paradise” is still content, like a dozing beachgoer bathed in the light of the stars. The hysterical Dever in “Booksmart” is also largely wasted on a bland character.
“Tickets to Paradise” as a footnote to many of the great rom-coms Roberts has starred in before, if I wanted to watch Clooney in the tropics, I’d go for Alexander Payne’s Lovely “Descendants.” Or for Clooney in the divorce plot, Coens’s “Unbearable cruelty” Along with Catherine Zeta-Jones, will be the choice.
However, if you just want to see Roberts and Clooney together, “Tickets to Heaven” clears this not-so-high bar with enough glamour, and, lest anyone doubt, the end credits — it feels like the script Those who follow Toy Story 2 – Proof that everyone who made “Tickets to Paradise” actually had a good time.
Universal’s “Ticket to Paradise” was rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for its strong language and brief suggestive material. Run time: 104 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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