We thought it would be random fun to pair the latest Julia Roberts romp with a first-time viewing of one of her earliest endeavors, from 1988.
TICKET TO PARADISE (D+) - If you are one of those people -- and I know you're out there -- who wishes that popular culture had stopped permanently at the beginning of the fourth season of "The Brady Bunch," then have I got a movie for you. Upgrade the parents to George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and send the clan to Bali instead of Hawaii and you get the dipshit plot of this pathetic rom-com.
Clooney and Roberts are David and Georgia Cotton, longtime exes who despise each other (at least at the beginning, if you catch my drift) but form an alliance to try to block their daughter, Lily (Kaitlyn Dever, adrift), from blundering into a marriage with someone she just met (a seaweed farmer in Bali; go with it) on what was supposed to be a brainless post-grad adventure before joining a law firm. Clooney and Roberts -- who at any given moment could break into classic Tracy-Hepburn repartee -- are given zippo to work with here, courtesy of writer-director Ol Parker, the hack behind "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" and "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."
Dever, along with her sidekick Billie Lourd, are given preposterous motivations and line-readings. Maxime Bouttier stands there looking pretty and muttering dumb lines as Gede, the hunky love interest. Gede and his extended family (the size of the clan is borderline offensive) live an improbably idyllic life along the island's beach as a perfect, honorable family of, yes, earnest seaweed farmers. (Newcomer Agung Pinda is one of the few bright spots as Gede's father.)
You can predict just about every twist and turn, each one telegraphed from miles away. Will David and Georgia's scheme blow up in their faces but somehow rekindle their long-curdled relationship? Please stop reading and go back to your '70s cocoon, if you have to even ask that question.
It is difficult to understand just how tin-eared and flawed this movie is. Twice there are references to Lily having just gone to college for four years. Um, that's not how you become a lawyer. Look it up; there's the part where you go to law school for three years. Would you believe that someone comically gets bit by a snake? Then there's the gut-buster of David and Georgia ending up in adjoining rooms. (When her boyfriend drops by unexpectedly and the exes happen to have just awoken (chastely) hung over together in Georgia's room, the idiot plot requires her to run around back and pretend David's room is hers. But why doesn't David just sneak back to his own room, problem solved? Please, stop asking these questions.)
Ah, but it's Clooney and Roberts. They are fun to watch at times, especially during a sloppy game of beer pong as the Dad Rock of their youth plays at the club. But even two of the most charming movie stars of our day can't make sense of or bring life to this infuriating waste of pixels. It doesn't help that the movie is at least 20 minutes too long. You won't be blamed if you pause the film at anytime during the second half and remark, "I can't believe there's still 40/30/20 minutes left! What more do they need to steer to this to the insultingly obvious ending?" But then, most of us wouldn't bother watching this sad tale in the first place, unless there is a rip in the time-space continuum and it somehow gets released in 1972.
MYSTIC PIZZA (1988) (B+) - This sweet '80s film about the man-crazy staff at a small pizza parlor in Connecticut glides along on a few strong performances. The passage of time, though, requires some adjusting of modern sensibilities about dating, as these gals could have been the ones who put the Bechdel test on the map.
We get a pair of breakthrough performances from Julia Roberts as Daisy, the roughest and toughest of the three amigas, and from Lili Taylor as Jojo, who wavers over her engagement to lovable lug Bill (a very young Vincent D'Onofrio). Those two are offset by an off-key Annabeth Gish as Kat, who falls into a bland relationship with the married man from her baby-sitting gig. Conchata Ferrell (TV's "Two and a Half Men") bats cleanup as the gruff but wise proprietor with the secret pizza sauce.
This is all ably directed by journeyman Donald Petrie ("Grumpy Old Men") from a charming story by Amy Holden Jones ("Indecent Proposal"). The young women fall into those predictable '80s relationships (there always has to be one woman from the wrong side of the tracks falling for a douche in a Porsche), but Jones' story (along with the dialogue by Perry and Randy Howze, who never went on to do much else) gives the trio just enough personality and believability to make you care about them.
Taylor is the life force here. Her scenes burst with energy, and she and D'Onofrio are a winning couple. Roberts flashes those looks of hers, and you can just sense a charisma flowing beneath the surface. You want to roll your eyes at the innocence of a simpler time, but this crew draws you in to their sentimental saga.
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