A Big Bold Beautiful Journey ★★½

Earlier this year, Mike Flanagan’s The Life of Chuck began with a mystery. ‘Who is Chuck?’, the man whose face appears on billboards, is thanked in radio advertisements, and has become omnipresent despite no one knowing his identity. Flanagan ultimately spends the remainder of his film peeling back the mystery of who Chuck is. To do this, Flanagan references the Walt Whitman poem “Song of Myself”, specifically the line “I contain multitudes.”

Kogonada’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey illustrates a very similar idea – that one’s memories and one’s recollection of their memories have an immeasurable impact on personality and way of looking at life. His film takes David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie) through literal doors they have passed through in their pasts to relive their memories and time with loved ones. In their 40s, David and Sarah are into their middle age. They have loved, lost loved ones, faced personal disappointments, and have built up a rigid sense of how they see the world and what they are willing – and not willing – to feel or do. Unlike many their age, they are single. Every previous relationship of theirs has untangled, mostly at the fault of themselves. At this point in their lives, they have decided that a marriage and a family is not in store for them.

The journey that they will undertake starts at an unexpecting car rental agency (literally, “The Car Rental Agency”). Both independently on their way to a wedding where they would meet, David has immediate skepticism upon walking into a large empty room except for a cheerful cashier and mechanic played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline, respectively. Waller-Bridge’s character has a very particular car to offer David for rental, a 1994 Saturn, and is pushy for him to take the GPS service offered. Though David has skepticism about this whole arrangement, it really is his only way to make it to the wedding on time. The GPS’ Hal-like user interface and conversational capability will ultimately lead to the anachronisms that allow David to relive his memories. A restaurant sign that reads ‘La Strada’, a reference to the Fellini road movie, also suggests to the audience that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey will be a transformative journey taking place on the road.

At the wedding, David and Sarah are introduced to each other by friends. There is some chemistry, but also some awkwardness. The two split, though each catches the other’s eye throughout the reception. This ultimately doesn’t lead to anything, though this soon changes when David’s GPS asks him if he wants to begin a big, bold, beautiful journey. Hours away from home and otherwise destined to navigate traffic for the remainder of the day, it can’t hurt. The GPS leads him to Sarah and their journey together begins.

In revisiting memories from each of their pasts, the two form trust and time on the road leads to conversations about their personal experiences. It becomes clear to them that their journey is not to lead them to an awe-inspiring destination, but rather inwards. They both have had their fair share of travel, but have not confronted or overcome their personal inhibitions. Their journey brings them closer and experiencing their memories together reveal why they are single in their 40s, and more importantly why they hold their views towards relationships, and where their guilt and regrets stem from. Kogonada’s film illustrates that seemingly inconsequential events that occur in our past grow in significance over time until they become the reason why we are the people we are today.

Known for his introspective dramas, Kogonada has directed a unique and moving film in A Big Beautiful Journey. On paper, the film is a road movie and maybe a rom-com, but in practice, it is not preoccupied with genre convention. Kogonada’s sole focus is to explore the introspection of his characters and Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are well-equipped for this challenging task. Conversely, where A Big Bold Beautiful Journey falters is its dialogue. Some revelatory pieces of dialogue aren’t quite earned when they are spoken, yet not entirely off-base for their scenes, and Farrell and Robbie can make up the difference in their compelling delivery. While it is easy to criticize A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (that title), the film is nonetheless refreshing in its intentions. It is a work of humanism, one that shows that even though our day-to-day life may appear trivial in significance, individual unexpecting moments craft the people we become. And yet, as A Big Bold Beautiful Journey suggests, we are capable of overcoming and changing the path our future takes – one door at a time.