This week brings a couple of much anticipated reunions to the big screen — in the same movie. “Ticket to Paradise” marks the reunion of megastars Julia Roberts and George Clooney, who shared a smart and sizzling chemistry in “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Ocean’s Twelve,” and it is also the reunion of Julia Roberts with the rom-com, a genre that she essentially defined in her career.
“Ticket to Paradise,” which is written and directed by “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” director Ol Parker, stars Roberts and Clooney as a pair of acrimoniously divorced parents who come together at their daughter’s wedding in Bali with a plan to sabotage the nuptials. It’s a welcome return for Roberts to comedy, as she’s focused more on dramas and television in the past few years, and Clooney to the big screen, as he was last seen in the 2020 Netflix film “The Midnight Sky,” which he also directed.
We all know Roberts is one of the queens of the rom-com, with a string of classics in the ‘90s to her name, and “Ticket to Paradise” is a good a reason as any to celebrate with a streaming marathon of her best rom-coms. Her 1988 breakout role was in “Mystic Pizza,” a comedy about friendship and romance and coming of age while working in a pizza joint, co-starring Lili Taylor and Annabeth Gish. Stream it on HBO Max. But 1990 brought what was Roberts’ true star turn, in Garry Marshall’s classic Pygmalion/“My Fair Lady” riff “Pretty Woman.” Roberts plays Vivian, the working girl with the heart of gold who gets a makeover and falls in love with a client played by Richard Gere. Rent it on all digital platforms.
