October Olio: Amsterdam, Rosaline, Ticket to Paradise

There have been a lot of great movies to watch in October. But there have also been some middling ones. If you’re looking for something that’s “fair” but not excellent, an excuse to just distract yourself for a few hours, then this blog post is what you seek.

Amsterdam: This is a great movie to spot celebrities. It’s an all-star cast, a wall-to-wall who’s who ensemble, starting with the central trio of Margot Robbie, Christian Bale, and John David Washington, and ending with the likes of Taylor Swift. Yes, Swift is in the movie for a glorious cameo that sets everyone off on an adventure. I won’t get into details about the plot (mostly because I seem to have forgotten all of it) but this is a period piece set in 1930s New York. Our protagonists are all Americans who first met each other in France during World War 1, and now they are reunited and faced with a murder mystery that they must solve with a complicated series of characters and motivations that appear to be loosely based on a true story, with “loosely” being the operative word. 

This film is meant to be a screwball comedy but it’s not particularly funny, and mostly just frantic. Writer-director David O. Russell had some kind of vision here, but despite all the ingredients being right, the final result falls flat. Watch it if you like lovely production design and great actors, but don’t expect a coherent or engaging story. If you're anything like my boyfriend, you will get a lovely nap out of it.

Ticket to Paradise: This is a movie where George Clooney and Julia Roberts play David and Georgia, a couple who got divorced 14 years ago and can’t stand each other but are united in their love for their daughter, Lily (the lovely Kaitlyn Dever). Lily went on a trip to Bali, fell in love with a man after two months, and now, instead of returning to America to start her law career, she is getting married and staying in Bali. I like to think of this as Eat Pray Love: The Sequel.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve pretty much seen the entire movie. Directed by Ol Parker (who co-wrote the screenplay with Daniel Pipski), this is a very standard romcom, with megastar wattage because Clooney and Roberts are, of course, utterly charming goofballs with great chemistry. But the plot is predictable, the dialogue is lazy, and you’ll get what you expected. Bali truly is a paradise and you’ll be jonesing for a vacation after you watch this film. So head on to the theater for some charm and good vibes, but don’t expect any surprises.

Rosaline: In this movie, we yet again find our girl Kaitlyn Dever in a romcom! Here she plays Rosaline, the girlfriend who was jilted by Romeo when he found Juliet instead. So what follows is a Romeo and Juliet behind-the-scenes spoof, where half the movie is just scenes from the play, but now with Rosaline rolling her eyes in the background or attempting to break this couple up so she can get back with Romeo.

It a a fun premise, directed by Karen Maine and adapted by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber from the young adult novel, When You Were Mine, by Rebecca Serle. Dever is a charismatic presence who does well with what she’s given, and there’s a lot of entertaining supporting character work, including Minnie Driver as the Registered Nurse and Bradley Whitford as Rosaline’s supportive but hapless dad. Enjoy the cameos and Shakespearean production design, and the comic take on what is ordinarily a timeless tragedy. There's also a great soundtrack, very reminiscent of the Bridgerton method of injecting contemporary pop into period pieces. It's a good way to spend some hours on the couch - you could do a lot worse. Like Juliet did.