Tick­et to Paradise

The rom­com is dying — why? There are soci­etal and eco­nom­ic fac­tors to con­sid­er, per­tain­ing to the col­lapse of mid-bud­get stu­dio film­mak­ing and the accord­ing shift in audi­ence tastes that’s cre­at­ed a feed­back loop of demo­ti­va­tion for their devel­op­ment. But watch­ing Tick­et to Par­adise, a paid vaca­tion to Bali sold as a low-effort tri­fle for mid­dle-aged cou­ples afford­ed a few hours of free­dom by the babysit­ter, it seems like the real issue lies in the fail­ure to cul­ti­vate human resources.

This syrupy cock­tail of escapism exists pri­mar­i­ly as a medi­um for the super­nat­ur­al charms of leads George Clooney and Julia Roberts, bona fide movie stars of a cal­iber in short sup­ply for fol­low­ing gen­er­a­tions. Gaz­ing upon such won­ders of the nat­ur­al world as his eye crin­kles or her open-mouthed laugh, the first instinct may be to assume that Hol­ly­wood hasn’t found any wor­thy suc­ces­sors because they’re not out there, the zero-body-fat action fig­ures inter­change­ably peo­pling today’s IP swill not up to the job. But the deep­er truth is that we’d have no way of know­ing if they were.

The sedate­ly pleas­ant dia­logue from Ol Park­er (as in his Best Exot­ic Marigold Hotel duol­o­gy, the con­sis­ten­cy is that of a before-bed bowl of tapi­o­ca pud­ding) shoots for the mid­dle, and the numb­ing results expose the root of the prob­lem as a dearth of the good mate­r­i­al that mints screen idols of the first order. Clooney and Roberts play the acri­mo­nious­ly divorced par­ents to an over­achiev­er gone astray, their daugh­ter (Kait­lyn Dev­er) hav­ing tak­en an island lover (Maxime Bout­ti­er) while on a trop­i­cal vaca­tion and decid­ed to ditch her bur­geon­ing legal career to start a new life among the Bali­nese sea­weed farm­ers. They spring into action, resolv­ing to set aside their con­stant bick­er­ing until they can put the kibosh on this rash union.

Sounds like the basis for screw­ball gold pitched square­ly in the ​“com­e­dy of remar­riage” tra­di­tion, except that their quar­rel­ing is all hol­low on the inside, none of the snip­py half-wit­ti­cisms volleyed between Clooney and Roberts informed by any ani­mus real enough to split the pair up. Nor is there any trace of the pas­sion that must have once burned between them, the emo­tion­al crux of the film — the shot in which she looks at him and sees the man she used to love — draw­ing on a sen­ti­men­tal asso­ci­a­tion with ER by show­ing Clooney goof­ing around with some kids. She remem­bers the first time she fell for the char­ac­ter just as we remem­ber the first time we fell for the actor play­ing him, a meta­tex­tu­al rhyme that would be clever if applied to a more ful­ly-formed creation.

Nobody’s real in this fric­tion­less fan­ta­sy, not their daugh­ter (who has just fin­ished either under­grad or law school, the slap­dash script can’t decide) and cer­tain­ly not her new beau, he and his fam­i­ly por­trayed as sim­ple, smil­ing natives that want for noth­ing more than to share the nat­ur­al boun­ty of their home with white tourists. From Hawks to Ephron, the genre’s greats root­ed their con­flicts in dif­fer­ences of class or cul­ture, a link to real­i­ty bal­anc­ing out the glam­our which Park­er demon­strates no inter­est in pursuing.

In this respect, he’s well-suit­ed to the mod­ern rom­com, which con­tents itself with a qual­i­ty ceil­ing top­ping out at ​“an inof­fen­sive hun­dred min­utes to spend with some con­ven­tion­al­ly attrac­tive peo­ple prob­a­bly culled from a pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion show.” Clooney and Roberts remain mas­ters of a dying art, mus­ter­ing the flus­tered charis­ma that makes them appear both per­fect and mor­tal, the same para­dox we observe in our spous­es and lovers. It’s a pity to see them set­tle like this, accept­ing less than they deserve, but it’s rough out there.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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