It takes about an hour for A Big Bold Beautiful Journey to come together. The latest film from Kogonada, the South-Korea-born American director who began his career as a video essayist before directing the rapturously received Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), is undoubtedly the director’s most mainstream effort yet.
With a cast that includes Colin Farrell, Margot Robbie, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the movie was marketed as a twee rom-com in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2003) and opened to scathing reviews. (It holds a 36 percent critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, but the audience score is notably higher at 58 percent.) A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is certainly flawed, and it requires a good amount of patience. But it’s the sort of movie that excuses its own flaws once everything comes together and you realize what it’s doing. It’s a movie that begs to be rewatched almost immediately, so radically does the second half re-contexualize the first.
Farrell and Robbie play David and Sarah, two ne’er-do-wells who meet at a wedding and share some familiar rom-com banter. They’re clearly attracted to each other, but neither of them, for differing reasons, feel they can take on a relationship. Long story short, car trouble befalls both David and Sarah on the way home from the wedding, and they find themselves at the mercy of The Car Rental Agency, a sparsely populated warehouse presided over by Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline. They insist their clients also rent a sat-nav device, which, once installed, asks, “Would you like to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey?” David and Sarah consent, and off they go to revisit pivotal moments from their past, accessed by doorways in the middle of forests and freeway underpasses.
You probably knew about halfway into that plot synopsis whether or not this movie is for you, and fair enough. While not as precious as it sounds on paper, Journey is an unabashedly sentimental effort which is occasionally successful in its emotional payoffs but its most notable for Kogonada’s inspired direction. In the hands of a lesser director, Seth Reiss’ trite and self-consciously quirky script (which inexplicably found its way onto the Black List, the industry’s tally of the best unproduced screenplays) could be exhausting. Robbie and Farrell also deserve much credit for infusing archetype characters with authentic life.
It takes almost 60 minutes of the movie’s 109-minute running time for things to click into place, which is admittedly a long time to let your audience hang. But under Kogonada’s direction, along with a lovely score by Joe Hisaishi and breathtaking photography from Benjamin Loeb, the movie lulls you into a hypnotic state. Much like the characters, who never question their rather demanding navigation device, you go along for the ride, no questions asked. Some undoubtedly will not be in tune with the movie’s tone, nor the time it takes to reach its final destination, but those who are open to the experience will be well rewarded.
After the mournful Columbus and After Yang, it makes sense that Kogonada would be drawn to a project that, in script form, is a fairly standard romantic dramedy. He seizes the opportunity to put his own spin on the genre, turning it into a borderline musical, and while it doesn’t always work, there are moments and sequences where Journey is truly transgressive. A visit to David’s old high school and a scene between Sarah and her mother (Lily Rabe), whom she lost as a teenager, are particular highlights. If the rest of the movie can’t quite measure up to the power of those sequences, it’s still a warm and entertaining subversion of a familiar genre anchored by two of the most charismatic and talented actors out there. It remains to be seen how big it will be, but this Journey is certainly beautiful and nothing if not bold.
