by Nick Ferro, Contributing Writer
For some reason, movies with a touch of mysticism, yet firmly set in reality, have always intrigued me. Show me a trailer where grounded characters go on a reality-warping adventure with fantastical results, and there’s a good chance I will be there opening weekend. Movies like Big Fish, Spirited Away, Your Name, to name a few. I think maybe it comes from my childhood love of similar adventures like Hook, The Pagemaster, or James and the Giant Peach.
In 2022, an animated movie called Suzume came out, and the marketing heavily featured the idea of doors in random locations leading to another place, and this was the vibe I got from the new Kogonada directed film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. I didn’t even need to watch the whole trailer to be on board with the concept. The idea that people would go through doors and be transported to moments from their past was fascinating to me. But with such a long list of great movies that have similar elements and whimsical imagery, would A Big Bold Beautiful Journey join my list of favorites? Casting Margo Robbie and Colin Farrell certainly didn’t hurt its chances.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is the story of two habitually single people. David (Farrell), ever the loner who purportedly enjoys his solitary lifestyle. Sarah (Robbie), who behaves similarly and gives off manic pixie dream girl energy, but is actually much less of one than surface level introductions would provide. They are both invited to a mutual friend’s wedding, and David opts to use a mysterious German rental car agency to get there. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline play the two quirky German rental agents who strangely insist he take a GPS with the rental. At the wedding, David and Sarah are introduced, and there is clearly an attraction, but their personalities don’t allow them to pursue what would otherwise be at worst a fun night with a stranger, or at best be the beginning of a relationship. David leaves the venue the next day, disappointed in himself for not trying harder to make a connection, when his GPS (Jodie Turner-Smith) asks a very serious question: Are you willing to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey?
Despite the absurdity of your GPS gaining sentience and asking to commandeer his life, David agrees. He is rerouted by the demon machine to a nearby fast food chain where he, lo and behold, runs into Sarah for a second chance. As fate would have it, Sarah’s rental car, which we learn is from the same agency, breaks down, and David offers to drive her home since they both live in the same city. Having already agreed to the aforementioned big, bold, beautiful journey herself, they proceed to follow the GPS to their first destination: a big red door in the middle of a forest. They discover that the door takes them to a place from David’s past where they pontificate on the meaning behind the destination and whether the experience is real. As they continue on their journey, every stop presents them with a new door transporting them to alternating key moments of each other’s lives.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a movie that both revels in its whimsy, and yet doesn’t quite know how to elevate said whimsy. The places that Sarah and David go, and the moments they relive, are each treated with varying degrees of time and importance. There are moments were they can quietly reflect upon mistakes they’ve made in their lives, or open up to each other about feelings and ideas that might not have otherwise been said in an average relationship. Each of them is flawed in different ways, yet the core of their problem is that they always hold back. David claims to have not found the right one. Sarah says half of her always wants to be single, so she blows up relationships. They both claim to not want to hurt the other when in reality, as so many stories go, they are really just afraid of getting hurt themselves. This trip together down memory lane is meant to be both cathartic for their own psyches, but also a way to share with a partner the deeper parts of their lives that they would never share on their own. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is truly about communication in relationships, and how to overcome the fear of opening up fully to another person.
Many people wander this earth with the idea that they will not truly be happy unless they have someone with whom to share their life. What my theory presupposes is that some people will never be happy in relationships because they refuse to be honest. What the movie suggests is: Maybe happiness isn’t the goal? What if we allowed ourselves to be so open with someone that it transcended happiness and allowed us to simply be content? To simply exist with another person. To be soulmates. I’m not sure I personally believe in the existence of soulmates, but there is a strange beauty in the thought that anyone can be your soulmate so long as you both are open and honest, and accept that person, flaws and all. I think that is what Kogonada is trying to convey.
How he chooses to convey this message is another story altogether. Remember how I said I like movies with whimsical and fantastical elements that take the characters out of reality? Yeah, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey failed to engage with me on that level. The idea behind it is solid, and there are moments where it manages to pull it off, but ultimately, I never felt the magic. Partly because this movie doesn’t establish clear enough rules, and yet is not willing to just be an ethereal fever dream either. Initially the established rules are, “a moment in their past, visited via door.” Then the movie throws a curveball where they don’t need a door to be transported. Or they are not in the past, but in a painting, or that they move from that painting to a hospital, but at two different times, and then it breaks completely when David goes through a door and becomes his own father. I know it seems silly to be overly concerned with how these mysterious circumstances work, but because the movie isn’t concerned at all, it made the story telling less compelling for me.
The movie opens with the feel of what a live action Studio Ghibli film might be like. A slice of life with a mystical element full of vibes, as the kids would say, and I was ready to be taken on a journey. But the movie never delves deep enough to suck me in long term. Farrell and Robbie are so humdrum in their delivery at times that, as much as I want to say it’s an interesting character choice, it is too low energy for what is actually needed. I was also turned off by the choice of music. There is no sweeping, epic score to add to the fantastic visuals being shown or ideas being discussed. It is mostly needle drops that are more aligned with road trip movies or quirky three-star romcoms.
As the movie moves into the second act where it should be ramping up the whimsy and emotional moments, it instead feels like a much less nihilistic (and creative) version of Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. I wish that Kogonada had taken as big a swing here that Kaufman did with his existential nightmare of a movie. I may not have loved I’m Thinking of Ending Things, but five years later, that movie still haunts me. I can’t say that I will remember much of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey in five days, much less five years.
Whimsy, or the lack thereof, aside, my biggest issue with ABBBJ is the screenplay’s need to not leave anything for the audience to discover themselves. Throughout the film, characters reveal something about themselves in conversation, only for the audience to be shown an example two or three scenes later. One small example of this is in my favorite scene, when they travel back to David’s high school musical. At one point, Sarah tells him that she was a fan of musicals growing up. Then later we are shown in her childhood bedroom exactly that and this happens time and again to varying degrees. The movie telegraphs its major events with dialogue, undercutting the mystery and discovery element that makes movies like this so much more powerful.
Ultimately, the negatives balanced out the positives for me, and I ended up landing rather net neutral on A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. I wanted more than it delivered, but I was never completely bored by what was being presented. It is ultimately saved by the magnetism of its performers, despite Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn accent being her new default American accent. I just enjoy Farrell and Robbie whenever I see them on screen. For better or worse, this is a mid-sized, mild, beautiful journey — big and bold, not so much.
Rating: It Was Just Okay
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is currently playing in theaters
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