LOVE ISLAND
Ol Parker packs Julia Roberts and George Clooney off to Bali.
Never mind superpowers. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, the power of love was all that you needed to seduce cinema viewers, with romantic comedies being as prevalent then as superheroes are now. Not any more. Which makes Ticket To Paradise, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, something of an event.
“I think the tropes became a little too obvious,” suggests writer-director Ol Parker (Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!) as to why the genre wilted and withered. “When the ending is predetermined – they fall in love – it’s the journey that counts, but it became ‘and now we see this, and now we see this, and now we see this…’” He sighs. “The airport dash…”
With its sunshine and sangria, dancing and dolphins, Ticket To Paradise seeks to make the journey vibrant once more. Roberts and Clooney play Georgia and David, a divorced couple forced to spend time together when their daughter, Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), invites them to Bali for her marriage to Gede (Maxime Bouttier). Georgia and Dave can’t stand the sight of each other, but are united in their desire to talk Lily out of making the same
mistake that ruined their own lives 25 years ago.
“I wanted it to feel like the sequel to a movie that no one had seen,” explains Parker. “Like [Richard Linklater’s] Before movies… ‘Let’s pick up those guys and see how they’re doing 25 years on.’ And the only pair that I could think of that really worked for it are George and Julia, because they have such a shared history on screen and off, and we know them so well.”
Having shared the screen four times previously (Ocean’s Eleven, Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind, Ocean’s Twelve, Money Monster), Roberts and Clooney, romcom stalwarts back in the day, dazzled cast and crew with their easy chemistry. Parker is adamant that their stars remain undimmed, though he admits that the concept of a movie star has changed somewhat.
“It used to be that a star guaranteed a movie’s opening,” he says. “That was the definition, that however shit the movie – even if Sandra Bullock made The Net, or Tom Cruise made Cocktail – people would go to see it. That may not be true any more in a financial sense. But who gives a fuck about financial sense? Stars are just other. There’s something effortlessly ethereal and other-worldly about them, and when they turn it on…” He shakes his head in joyous disbelief. “Regularly, our jaws would be on the floor. George and Julia would make everyone on the set feel chilled and relaxed, and then they’d do a take and it’s, ‘Oh, I remember now, it’s George Clooney and Julia Roberts.”
‘They have such a shared history on screen and off, and we know them so well’ OL PARKER
TICKET TO PARADISE OPEN IN CINEMAS ON 16 SEPTEMBER.