A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Review

Chad Marriott
Sep 22
3 min read

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, has drawn mixed reviews, but this review isn't one of them. The film's director, Kogonada, paints a beautiful picture of Sarah and David (played by Robbie and Farrell) as they explore regret, purpose, and expectations.

The film takes place in a semi-fantasy world, featuring a sentient GPS and magical doors in the woods. If audience members expect a cookie-cutter rom-com, they'll be disappointed. The film aspires to more than that, and it shouldn't be criticized too heavily for trying to do more than the average fantasy romance.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: Acting

The film is essentially a two-hander with two actors up to the task. While the script is mostly strong, there are a few awkward-sounding lines, but Robbie and Farrell deliver them well. They capture the film's intent of people hiding behind facades of stoicism and cynicism. They are "performing" as the GPS narrator suggests. As the film progresses, the characters shift back and forth between hiding and vulnerability.

Two actors in the film, Hamish Linklater (David's father) and Lily Rabe (Sarah's mother), contribute to the film's two most powerful scenes. Both performances capture the vulnerability of parents as they navigate the world, and the way the scenes are constructed, they, too, show that everyone is performing.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: Story

The film's trailer created expectations of a dramatic romantic comedy. It instead aspires to much more than that, emulating a combination of Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson. The film borrows from the theatre and exists in a world that isn't quite reality. Aside from a scene in a high school musical, the characters even step outside reality onto a stage to rehearse how to perform in life.

Many scenes have the composition of paintings, something larger than life. In some moments, such as a scene where David and Sarah are looking at a door in the woods, the scene is shot from a distance with nature as the frame. These elements are likely frustrating to some audience members. With a title with words like big, bold, and beautiful, we want the Hollywood version of that. A guy meets a girl and they fall madly in love with some easy-to-side-step hijinks. This film does not provide that comfort. The framing of the film exists to show that life is big, bold, and beautiful, not because of external factors, as the film shows, but because of internal factors, as the characters learn.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: Themes

One reason many critics dislike this film is that it has a message that makes contemporary American society uncomfortable: stop chasing happiness and instead accept contentment. It argues against the modern preeminent value of self-gratification in favor of true intimacy of knowing a person and being vulnerable enough to have your "joy" be dependent on others, whether that be a partner or a child.

Often, the messages in films are not contradicted (see my review of The Long Walk), making them shallow. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey goes beyond that and works to poke holes in its own philosophy. Characters assert a belief, often a reasonable belief, and then are put in circumstances requiring them to question it.

For example, David says that his parents failed in raising him because they called him special, setting up expectations that will never be met; however, the film challenges David's worldview by forcing him to take a step into his father's shoes. Sarah has a similar experience by revisiting her regrets. This mirroring tool helps the themes to resonate by showing the same idea in different circumstances and perspectives.