I have to admit to being somewhat confounded by A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Here is a whimsical romantic fantasy, led by one of my favorite filmmakers, Kogonada, who found unusual emotional and artistic beauty with his films Columbus and After Yang. It even stars two gorgeous stars who are also personal favorites, Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. And yet, this monotonous attempt to mine something genuine out of a surreal, overlong meet-cute is a massive waste of talent in front of and behind the camera.
The film is penned by Seth Reiss, who apparently forgot any of the irony and wit that he brought to The Menu just a couple of years ago. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is essentially one long road trip movie, in which tragic singles David (Farrell) and Sarah (Robbie) meet at a mutual friend’s wedding. Before that, they both stop at the mysterious Car Rental Agency, run by a chatty and badly-accented Phoebe Waller-Bridge and an underused Kevin Kline, to pick up 2004 Saturns with the crucial GPS add-on. The wedding encounter goes swimmingly…except that Sarah warns David, almost immediately upon meeting, that she will just end up hurting him and he should avoid her. She then asks him to marry her. Mixed signals, much?
It’s a bad sign, both for David and for us, because the film is telling us right away that we’re in for a lot of these two people explaining their relationship baggage. Doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Fortunately, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey isn’t quite as bland as all that. On the way home, David, who has missed out on a wild hook-up with Sarah because he was too scared to dance with her, is asked by the GPS if he’d like to go on a big bold beautiful journey. Well, the guy won’t hit the dance floor but a disembodied voice asking him to go to parts unknown? Sure!!! Of course, the road leads him right to Sarah (enjoying a “fast food cheeseburger” at Burger King, mind you.), and they embark together on a trek into their respective pasts, literally passing through magical doorways, to figure out why they’re so screwed up in love.
The major problem with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is that neither David or Sarah is all that interesting, and never feel like fully fleshed out people. They aren’t even that complicated. Sarah, whose attentive mother (Lily Rabe) died young but taught her to love museums, grew up without her father around so she feels unworthy of being loved by any man. She tells David flat out that she cheats on all of her boyfriends, especially the ones she cares about.
David made the classic teenager mistake of telling a girl that he loves her, during a performance of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and never got over the rejection and embarrassment. Now as a sullen older man, not only does he not act anymore but he’s too scared to risk being hurt again. It takes about 20 minutes to figure out that maybe the real “big bold beautiful journey” for these two is sharing a life with someone.
So if the movie isn’t trying that hard, what is there to really dig about it? The cinematography and production design are stunning, creating visual wonders as David and Sarah pass through their respective pasts. The recreation of David’s high school play, complete with rabid audience participation; an empty museum draped in shadow; a rain-drenched outdoor wedding where everyone is holding umbrellas aloft; there are no shortage of gorgeous images that make more of an impact than any personal revelations either character discovers.
It’s not a knock on Farrell and Robbie, who do the most that they can with such thinly-drawn characters. There’s some decent chemistry between them, and Farrell surprises with some playful showmanship, but mainly it makes you want to see them together in a better movie. Unfortunately, neither character is all that enjoyable to be around for too long, before they begin drowning under the weight of their own misery. This tedious road trip overstays its welcome, failing to deliver the lightness and joyful energy it needed to balance it out.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is going to do much at the box office. Movies like this are a tough sell, and they don’t make them very often for that reason. But I also think it’s going to find an audience in the long run. There will be people out there who connect with Sarah’s feelings of guilt over her mother, and those who understand David’s apprehension, not to mention his need to understand his father, played wonderfully by Hamish Linklater. For them, this big bold beautiful journey will be worth it. For others, best to keep those doors shut tightly.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is in theaters now.
