Rob Reviews "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey"

I kind of dig it when a film and its marketing keeps things ambiguous, but I am also at the point where I don’t seek out trailers as much as I used to.  I find that going into a film as cold as I can (with the exception of sequels from time to time) helps me evaluate it by how I feel as the story unfolds.  Knowing that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey was directed by Kogonada gave me mixed feelings as I was not the biggest fan of After Yang but also enjoyed his work on the Star Wars series The Acolyte.

He once again has Collin Farrell in front of his camera as David, a man living by himself in the city and believes he is doing just fine.  When he finds his car with a boot on it as he is getting ready to go out of town for a wedding, he finds a quirky rental car company that puts him in an older car that has an even quirkier GPS system (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith).  While at the wedding, he meets Sarah (Margo Robbie), and what starts out as what could be a chance meeting turns into exactly what the title refers to, revealing secrets that they face of both their lives and each others.

There are quite a few subtle moments here that reminded me of how much A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a nod to the old school Hollywood romances with a modern twist.  The story of boy meets girl/boy winds up in a strange situation with girl/both of them fall for each other even though they don’t want to with a LOT of dialogue is done in a way that doesn’t mail it in knowing that there is a built-in audience for this type of thing that has a decent chance of making back its $60 million dollar budget (there ARE some visual effects used here, so don’t assume the two stars got seriously paid… I mean, they probably did, but still).  I did find myself engaged throughout, even though I had a pretty good idea of where this was all going.  Farrell and Robbie are magic together as two people simply just trying to be okay with their station in life while realizing they shouldn’t be.

The script (written by Seth Reiss, who is best known for The Menu, but don’t connect one with the other here) does a great job of marking its chapters very well and in the end tying it all together in a beautiful and well thought out way.  It’s a love story that takes what would be normally months of a relationship to get to and condenses it in just a couple of days with just the right amount of suspension of disbelief and leaving no detail unaddressed as the story unfolds.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a film that IS a bit arts-y, but as I wrote in my comments after the screening, this is done in the best of ways where other films of its type have failed miserably.  The performances are powerful, the direction is spot-on, the writing is gorgeous, and the execution is one that I believe could make it a sleeper hit as we are full steam ahead into the fourth quarter of 2025.  Put this one on your list to see!