Ticket to Paradise (2023)

Even as romantic comedies go, this is not a good movie. First it seems to have gotten to 1990 and come to a halt--it is dated in almost every aspect of the story line, and while it could be nostalgic, it mostly isn't. Then there is the irritating part that occurs in the story, where, in this case, the divorced couple takes an awful lot of bickering and putting each other down needlessly before they start to work together for a common goal--I almost stopped watching it even though I was on a transpacific flight and had a lot of time to kill. There are two things that save this--the first is that all the main players are good, and they transcend the story line. Then there the setting--wow, is it beautiful. The movie says Bali, but the actual place is the Gold Coast of Australia, just south of Brisbane, and should encourage people to think about traveling there to see it in person. The story is that a divorced couple's daughter graduates from college (although it is confusing because they keep talking about her promising law career) and takes a post graduation trip with her room mate to Bali, where she meets the man of her dreams, and decides to give up her future in the U.S. to live with him and his family on their seaweed farm and the parents aim to stop them.