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David and Georgia (George Clooney and Julia Roberts) impulsively wed right after their college graduation 25 years ago. Things ended acrimoniously five years after that; decades later, the one thing they can agree on is the daughter, Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), that came out of it. So when Lily announces shortly after finishing law school that she’s going to, to David’s and Georgia’s ears, blow her life up, they’re moved to put their differences aside. After summer-vacationing in Bali with her best friend, Wren (a consistently scene-stealing Billie Lourd), she’s moving there permanently. She’s fallen in love at first sight with a dreamy kelp farmer named Gede (Maxime Bouttier), and after two months with him is certain she’d rather marry him and join the seaweed biz than try convincing judges of her latest client’s innocence back in the states. 

David and Georgia put up a front of support. But once they touch down in Bali, they kick off a My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997)-style joint effort to sabotage the just-days-away nuptials, taking a break from their constant bickering for garden-variety scheming. They not-unreasonably believe their daughter is reenacting the life-ruining impulsiveness that doomed their own marriage and certain telling her as much wouldn’t be as effective as direct action. The efforts are for the most part half-assed; their most audacious move comes when Georgia stealthily pickpockets the little-girl ringbearer just before said rings are scheduled to be traded in a pre-wedding ceremony. Though that isn’t surprising, because in Ticket to Paradise — an old-school romantic comedy complete with a closing-credit blooper reel and BFF character played by the daughter of perennial rom-com best friend Carrie Fisher — of more interest are the incremental ways David and Georgia start reconnecting, inching toward an inevitable recoupling.

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