Director Kogonada's understated aesthetic and screenwriter Seth Reiss's imaginative intentions seem at odds with a cold and distant love story.
Cinema often demands a certain suspension of disbelief. But what happens when a film demands too much, without offering the viewer emotional reasons to justify the leap? That, in short, is the experience of watching "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey," an idiosyncratic romantic fantasy that never quite sells the unforgiving love story that develops between its two incredibly attractive commitment-phobes, Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell), who meet at a wedding.
Director: Kogonada
Writer: Seth Reiss
Stars: Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, Jennifer Grant
This is a shame, as director Kogonada is undoubtedly the kind of observant artist capable of extracting reservoirs of humanity and melancholy in the most unexpected places, from the edges of modern architecture ("Columbus") to an android's data bank ("After Yang"). But part of the problem lies in an already insubstantial script (by Seth Reiss, of the brilliant satirical horror film "The Menu") that is unrivaled in its direction.
While "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" focuses on how memory, grief, and loss shape our future, its fanciful nature demands a flashier style and therefore feels out of place under Kogonada's minor-key touch. The story's baffling (sometimes annoying) sense of humor doesn't help, as it works against the big, bold, and beautiful life lessons the film desperately tries to convey.
The film's tonal inconsistencies considerably hinder its incredibly talented co-stars. Much of the time, both Farrell and Robbie seem distant and surprisingly cold when they're supposed to be embracing intimate, vulnerable feelings that the audience knows they're more than capable of projecting. We first meet Farrell's David when he's forced to rent a car to his friend's wedding after his own is immobilized. The rental agency he finds is the kind of place anyone would think twice about entering (unless they're in a David Lynch film): a huge warehouse with two talkative, straightforward agents (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, with aggressively unfunny one-liners) and two identical 1990s cars with peculiar GPS systems. David drives off in one of the cars. And we soon discover that Sarah has checked into the second one to go to the same wedding.
What follows is a poorly sketched chance encounter between Sarah and David at a place called "La Strada" (in a possible nod to a sophisticated, Federico Fellini-esque fantasy that never materializes). And when the two suddenly start arguing about who would hurt the other first in the event of a romantic relationship, there's no chemistry between them onscreen. Still, they end up in the same car after Sarah breaks down, as the vehicle's strange GPS, with its sultry voice, serves as a link between the lonely travelers.
Along the way, they stop at various doors that offer Sarah and David portals to defining moments in their pasts: premature births, parental abandonment, missed connections, youthful heartbreaks, and opportunities that slipped through their fingers. As the various doors open one after another to hospital rooms, school auditoriums, neighborhood restaurants, and childhood homes, both Sarah and David have the opportunity to smooth things over and become the kind of people unafraid to commit to new relationships.
There are certainly some nice laughs along the way. Among them is a brief performance of the musical "How to Survive in Business Without Really Trying," accompanied by a playful Farrell. And there is at least one moment where the drama works, especially when Sarah briefly reunites with her mother with the promise of a modest dinner of mashed potatoes and a watch of "Big." Still, we're plunged into this brave new world of doors and memories too hastily, with no attempt at thematic or visual world-building.
Consequently, the fact that neither Sarah nor David ever truly questions their circumstances is pointless. And even with the few rules the film imposes on itself, everything we see feels distant, implausible, and artificial, as if we're trapped in Sarah and David's "The Truman Show," no matter how hard "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey" tries to make us lovers and believers. Compared to recent, endearingly flawed dramas like "The Life of Chuck" and "We Live in Time," which also question the past of human life, Kogonada's film rarely moves as it should.
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