When it comes to rom-com movie weddings, beware Julia Roberts — she’s already run away as a bride and sown chaos at her best friend’s nuptials, and now, in “Ticket to Paradise,” her character has set her matrimony-disrupting sights on her own daughter’s union. Written and directed by Ol Parker, “Ticket to Paradise” reunites Roberts with the rom-com, and with her “Ocean’s Eleven” co-star George Clooney, too, but what should be a slam dunk is instead a missed free throw.
The elements are there: the megastar power of Roberts and Clooney, who banter and eye-twinkle effortfully throughout the film as Georgia and David, the acrimoniously divorced parents of ambitious recent grad Lily (Kaitlin Dever). Before starting her career as a lawyer in Chicago (curiously, after what seems only four years of college), Lily sets off to eat, pray, love her way around Bali with her bestie Wren (Billie Lourd). But one boat rescue by a handsome seaweed farmer, Gede (Maxime Bouttier), sends Lily’s well-laid plans into the drink. The next time her parents see her, it’s in Bali, and unbeknownst to her, they’re finally united — when it comes to sabotaging her wedding.
This is all explicated in the trailer, and the premise is a fine enough rom-com device — two people hate each other, and then hopefully love each other, only this time they used to love each other, and they both love their daughter, so much that they’d rather see her alone, pursuing her career in America, rather than young and in love in Bali. There’s a whole lot of projecting going on, and yes, the screenplay will spell all of that out for us too.
