Ticket to Paradise

Grade: C+

Ticket to Paradise, opening today, is one of those rare movies that would have been better if it had been worse. Hearing about the premise and seeing the trailer made me smile with delight. George Clooney and Julia Roberts star as a divorced couple. They can’t stand each other, but they have to put their heads together and co-conspire for the sake of their daughter. A recent college graduate and aspiring lawyer, she is about to “throw away her career” by impulsively marrying a boy she just met on vacation in Bali – unless her parents can quit bickering long enough to put a stop to it.

It’s a convention that has been around at least as far back as Shakespeare’s plays, particularly The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing. Two leading characters spend most of the time hating and insulting each other, but because it’s a rom-com, we know they will be together by the end. Come to think of it, how cool would it have been to instead see Clooney and Roberts in Shrew or Much Ado, in place of this?

Ticket to Paradise might have played more successfully if it had leaned into the predictability of the genre with unapologetic self-awareness. All the jokes that are either too easy or just not funny would have managed to land better if we’d felt the actors winking at us as if to say “we think this is ridiculous, too.” Instead, everything is played “for real,” with such solemn sincerity. The movie has one foot in two different ponds, when it should have chosen just one to dive into.

Clooney and Roberts are working together for the sixth time. They have a rhythm, a chemistry, a banter – even if the screenplay doesn’t do them the best favors. I’ll spoil my favorite and least favorite lines. As old as they are, and as long as they’ve been divorced, they can’t seem to manage being civil to each other. Roberts spouts off a good one: “I’m sorry, was the middle of my sentence interrupting the beginning of yours?” Then there’s a scene halfway through, when they find themselves waking up in the same room the morning after a beer pong extravaganza. There’s a knock on the door. “It’s my boyfriend Paul!” – Roberts exclaims. The characters already know Paul. The audience has met Paul. Why not just say “It’s Paul”? Do they not trust us to stay up to speed?

A small supporting character who wasn’t that humorous in their first scene shows up again later in a “hey, remember me?” bit. Outtakes play over the end credits, as unnecessary as they are unfunny. Ticket to Paradise is a disappointing, uneven experience that tries to have its cake and eat it too, and succeeds at neither.

Grade: C+