Two Tickets to Greece, the story of two middle-aged women who have not seen each other since their early teens and find themselves traveling together to the Greek Isles. As a character points out to Blandine (Olivia Côte), even her name sounds boring.
Blandine’s husband left her two years earlier and is about to have a baby with his new, young wife. Magalie (Laure Calamy) lives for fun, excitement, and the triumph of petty cons like keeping the tags on an expensive shirt so she can wear it once and then return it. In a brief flashback as the movie begins, we see them as middle schoolers getting into trouble and laughing about it.
When Blandine and her college student son are going through boxes of things that have been packed away for decades, she tells him about her old friend, and he surprises her by tracking down Magalie and inviting her to meet Blandine for dinner. She does not tell him it did not go well, so he surprises her again by inviting Magalie to accompany Blandine on the trip to Greece. When she tells him they cannot get along, he loses patience. “You have two weeks to kill each other or patch things up. I don’t care which.”
Blandine has planned a stay in a luxurious hotel on the island of Amorgos, where she and Magalie once dreamed of visiting together, inspired by a film they had never watched, Luc Besson’s “The Big Blue.” But Magalie is a chaos agent. The careful, precise itinerary Blandine had in mind, with a notebook and glue stick to document every step, is jettisoned. Others might make Magalie’s choices because they cannot imagine the consequences. But Magalie is so determined to enjoy every possible outcome that she welcomes the consequences. So what if they get kicked off the ferry boat on a different island than the one with the fancy hotel? No problem! “We’ll sleep under the stars!”
They end up at a small, rustic inn. Happy wherever she is, Magalie dances joyfully on the patio (and on a tabletop), where the other guests are having dinner. In a very sweet moment, as Blandine watches, she sees Magalie not as she is now but as she was when they were friends, imagining dancing with her as they did in middle school.
The Gateway is an American crime thriller film directed by Michele Civetta and starring Shea Whigham, Olivia Munn, Zach Avery, Bruce Dern, Frank Grillo, Keith David, Taryn Manning, Mark Boone Junior, Jessica Medina, Taegen Burns, Jay Hieron and Alexander Wraith. The screenplay, written by Alexander Felix and originally titled Where Angels Die, was included in the 2013 Black List.
Two Tickets to Greece (2023)
Les Cyclades
Directed by: Marc Fitoussi
Starring: Laure Calamy, Olivia Côte, Kristin Scott Thomas, Alexandre Desrousseaux, Nicolas Bridet, Panos Koronis, Leelou Laridan, Marie Mallia, Sarah Le Picard, Candice Bouchet
Screenplay by: Marc Fitoussi
Cinematography by: Antoine Roch
Film Editing by: Catherine Schwartz
Costume Design by: Marli Aleiferi
Makeup Department: Stéphane Desmarez
Music by: Mocky
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Greenwich Entertainment
Release Date: July 14, 2023
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