PLOT: Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell) meet at a wedding, and fate throws them together on a journey through time that revisits past mistakes in the hopes of building them a better future.
REVIEW: Whimsy is a tough thing to pull off. We live in a cynical era where audiences seem cool on anything that doesn’t come with a heavy dose of irony. Add to that Hollywood’s reluctance to green-light romance movies that aren’t based on bestsellers, and you have a challenging marketplace for A Big Bold Beautiful Journey to open in.
The movie, from acclaimed indie director Kogonada (Columbus, After Yang), features two bona fide movie stars in Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. But despite the whimsical premise (a journey through time), the film itself is too quiet and stately to connect, with paper-thin characters adding to the sense that this was a misbegotten project for all involved.
For a movie like this to work, you have to be invested in the leads. Beyond the fact that they’re played by impossibly good-looking stars, you never really care whether Robbie’s Sarah and Farrell’s David end up together. They meet at a wedding where we’re asked to believe David—despite his good looks and Irish brogue—is shy with women, while Sarah just wants a no-strings-attached hookup. They miss out on a night together, but both wind up in a magical rental car with a GPS that leads them backward in time. They’re given the chance to relive moments from their youth—scenes that should have been fun but instead come across as dry. At least there’s one highlight: Colin Farrell showing off an unexpected flair as a song-and-dance man while reliving his teenage years in a school production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
The journey, overseen by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (sporting an awful German accent) and Kevin Kline (with an equally bad English one) at their magic car rental agency, is designed to teach Sarah and David how to love again. David has never found “the one” and has given up trying, while Sarah believes she’s unworthy of love and constantly self-sabotages. Their trip through time is more therapeutic than thrilling, but it’s never as moving as it should be.
My hunch is that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey falters because Kogonada, a superb filmmaker, works best when directing his own scripts. He has a very particular aesthetic, and here it doesn’t mesh with Seth Reiss’s screenplay, which probably needed a lighter, more playful touch. The movie lacks momentum or energy, though it is gorgeous to look at thanks to Benjamin Loeb’s sumptuous cinematography. The great Hamish Linklater, saddled with an Irish accent, gets one of the film’s few gems of a role as David’s kindly father, and his scenes with Farrell actually resonate.
That said, I fully expect this movie to connect with some people. It feels like the sort of film that could develop a small but loyal audience. Case in point: I saw this at a private screening (I did the junket—interviews dropping tomorrow), and it was just me and the hulking security guard assigned to watch me. When the movie ended, this gentle giant was in tears, telling me the film hit very close to home for him. For him, it landed. And if you suspect it might land for you too, then by all means, go see it—I honestly hope you love it.
As for me? When it comes to romances, I preferred the upcoming, earthier Roofman.
