Ticket To Paradise Movie Review: Julia Roberts and George Clooney steal the show in this witty and exotic ride

Review: Once-married couple Georgia Cotton (Julia Roberts) and David Cotton (George Clooney) are also divorced from being cordial to each other. So much so that for their daughter Lily’s (Kaitlyn Dever) graduation ceremony, they ask to be seated miles away from each other. But as luck would have it, they find themselves sitting right next to each other in the auditorium, and the viewers are quickly introduced to their bickering. They cannot speak a sentence without roasting and trying to outdo one another to prove who loves Lily more.

Lily’s happiness and well-being is the only thing they see eye to eye on. So, they decide to band together to prevent her from making the mistake they once made — marrying on an impulse. When she takes a well-deserved holiday after four years of drudgery at law school and goes to Bali with her best friend Wren (Billie Lourd), Lily meets and instantly falls in love with a local seaweed farmer, Gede (Maxime Bouttier). On receiving this news, David and Georgia catch the first flight to Bali and decide to sabotage her wedding as she’s all set to throw away her career as a lawyer to settle down in Bali.

What follows is the duo’s shenanigans, such as stealing Lily and Gede’s wedding rings to tricking them into going to a cursed local temple that can split up an unmarried couple, competing in seaweed harvesting, and more. And amid all this, Georgia’s pilot boyfriend, Paul, (Lucas Bravo) flies them to Bali and joins them there.

Director and co-writer Ol Parker has glibly packaged this 104-minute outing and played on its strength — Julia Roberts and George Clooney, who reunite on screen after 2016’s Money Monster. It’s their show from beginning to end, and they own it. One couldn’t be more thankful for that, as, otherwise, Ticket to Paradise would have been just another forgettable romcom. The plot is nothing to write home about and the premise is pretty formulaic — a sparring divorced couple forced to spend time together partly by fate and partly by design. The first half of the movie will keep you thoroughly entertained but by the time the conflict escalates, the narrative droops. Even then, Julia and George pick up the slack and make it easier for one to take the plot with a pinch of salt.

Besides the lead actors’ banter and wisecracks that elicit adequate laughter, it’s their effortless chemistry that makes them a delight to watch. Kaitlyn Dever is nice, too, but her role has limited scope to make her shine. The movie has ample hilarity — watch out for the aeroplane sequence when Georgia and David fly to Bali, biting dolphins, and a beer pong competition when they break into a silly jig.

Cinematographer Ole Birkeland takes you on a breathtakingly gorgeous tour of Bali, focussing on its exotic luxury. The land’s culture is also presented well, especially its people’s peculiarities without mocking them.

Ticket to Paradise is a fun adventure caper that will keep you in splits for most part and help you overlook its thin plot and predictable sequences.