Ticket to Paradise
[Blu-ray/DVD Combo]
They don’t make romcoms like they used to. I don’t know why, but I watched Sleepless in Seattle, Joe Versus the Volcano, Moneypit, and You’ve Got Mail recently and it was a revelation just how good the genre can be. I don’t know why I looked down it. Maybe Romcoms nowadays suck? Maybe the writing is lacking or the protagonists just aren’t engaging enough? I watched Devil Wears Prada also, and the less said about that move the better. Whatever the case, I’m happy to know that I AM a fan of Romcoms now, just not modern ones.
If you want to recreate the Romcom magic of the past, it wouldn’t hurt to start with the right actors. I don’t think there are modern equivalents to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks (both of whom are still alive, I know), but George Clooney and Julia Roberts should be enough to get the job done, right? This is why I went into Ticket to Paradise with high hopes, and sure enough, the screen just lights up when two are on screen… for the first 30 minutes. After which, Ticket to Paradise just gets exhausting. Mostly, because it leans on all the dumb tropes of modern romcoms instead of sticking with what works, which is that Clooney and Roberts are electric when they are pissed off and hate each other. Instead, what we get are the same tired old bullshit: tropical islands are paradise and we should all be so lucky to live there; natives are endlessly pure, kind, and wise with their traditional customs; and spontaneous decisions are never wrong. The film even gets downright creepy when Clooney and Roberts start falling back in love with each other. That beer pong scene makes my skin crawl, and the fact that their daughter has mysteriously found Mr Perfect (who’s available!) with no downside is equally strange. What happened to the more accurate portrayal of island life depicted in the Descendants (another Clooney joint!), which is that there are assholes everywhere and you still die of cancer even if you live in “paradise.”
I was rooting for you, Ticket to Paradise. I wanted to be impressed by you. I thought you were different. You let me down. Just like all the other ones.
