It was good to be back together to discuss the film for this month – “Ticket to Paradise”.
 
David and Georgia, two divorced parents who can't stand each other, head to Bali after their daughter, Lily, announces her plans to marry a local islander she just met while on holiday. They decide to put aside their differences and work together to stop the wedding, believing that doing so will keep Lily from making a dreadful mistake similar to their own.
 
The main characters are David Cotton (George Clooney), Georgia Cotton (Julia Roberts), his ex-wife and Lily Cotton (Kaitlyn Dever), their daughter.   Maxime Bouttier played Lily’s fiancé, Gede.  Lily meets Gede on her holiday between finishing her legal studies and starting her first job.  She decides her life belongs on the island with him rather than in a big city but is suspicious her parents would try to prevent the wedding.  Her parents’ plan to stop the wedding fall apart.  They eventually realise they cannot live their daughter’s life and so support her marriage.  When leaving the island after the wedding, they realise their mistake had not been getting married, but divorcing and jump off the boat taking them to the mainland to catch their flight home, heading back to the island.  This was a scene some of the class thought did not make sense.
 
The film was nice light-hearted entertainment.  There was no need for concentration.  The interaction between the main characters worked well.  The setting (mostly filmed in Queensland) was perfect for the storyline.  Our conversation went on to the current concept of “helicopter parenting” where parents try to control the lives of their children.
 
It was rated as 3-4/5.  A fun film, with nothing too deep.
 
Our next film class is on 14 December.  We will be discussing the film “Mrs Harris Goes to Paris”.  A widowed cleaning lady in 1950s London falls madly in love with a couture Dior dress and decides that she must have one of her own.

Joy Shirley

With many of the class out of town (and I was one of them), and others put off by the weather, the class was very small this month.  Still a small number did manage to have a conversation about the film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande and I have been sent a few comments.  Thank you to the people who attended.
 
Nancy Stokes (played by Emma Thompson), a retired schoolteacher, is yearning for some adventure, and some sex.  And she has a plan, which involves hiring a young sex worker named Leo Grande (played by Daryl McCormack).
 
This was an unusual film which in the bulk of the film involved only two characters, Nancy and Leo.  There was one short scene in a café with a former student of Nancy’s.  Nancy felt she had had a dull marriage and had missed out on excitement and romance in her life.  She hired the services of Leo to spice up her life. 

It was certainly a “different” type of film, but one could find some good points in it.  The actors were excellent in their demanding roles, there was a lot of humour, and nudity was part of the story (though rather explicit at times).  

This odd couple did form a friendship eventually.  Leo confided in her of his estranged relationship with his mother and brother, and how he told people he worked on an oil rig, not as a sex worker.  Nancy gradually gained confidence in herself, and a better understanding of her children. 

​The name of the film came from one of the final statements of the film where Nancy says to Leo “Good luck to you, Leo Grande”.
 
It was rated as 3/5.  Thought provoking whilst still be being very funny.
 
Our next film class is on 9 November.  We will be discussing the film “Ticket to Paradise” starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney.

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​Joy Shirley