Julia Roberts hits the big screen once again with her new romantic comedy “Ticket To Paradise.” Directed by Ol Parker, “Ticket To Paradise” is an entertaining film with cliches seen from a mile away. 

The movie begins with Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), the daughter of Georgia Cotton (Julia Roberts) and David Cotton (George Clooney), a divorced couple that wants nothing to do with each other. Lily spends the summer in Bali before attending law school where she meets a boy who she falls in love with. Lily decides to marry him, throw away her life’s work and move to Bali. 

Lily’s dream of becoming a lawyer is never mentioned again. At the beginning of the movie she seemed set on the idea of becoming one, even bringing books to study on her trip. While this left many unanswered questions, the confusion doesn’t stop there. The whole plot is filled with unrealistic scenes that make the acting seem forced. The poor acting made the movie slightly disappointing as I went into the theater hoping for another classic starring Julia Roberts, like Pretty Woman with a twist. Even though it would be hard to live up to a 1990s classic, Julia Roberts has seen better years, especially with her debut in Wonder in 2017. She left the big screen after 2017 with a movie that had a very powerful message. “Ticket to Paradise” was not the comeback I was hoping for.  

Being a romantic-comedy, especially one starring Julia Roberts, it was clear that she was going to end up with the leading man, no matter how absurd it may seem. Not to mention the younger cast didn’t bring anything to the table either. The main couple, Lily and Gede (Maxime Boulttier) had little chemistry. 

On the other hand, the cliches also made the movie more funny because the whole situation was so fake. While this movie was far from a classic, the humor was arguably the most engaging part of the film. In addition, the movie was well paced and hardly felt like two hours. 

If you are in search of a movie for pure entertainment, then I would recommend it. It may not be the best movie ever created, but it’s worth watching.