By George & Josh Bate
When we first saw footage from A Big Bold Beautiful Journey at CinemaCon 2025, the new film from director Kogonada quickly rose to be among our most anticipated movies for the remainder of the year. In just a few minutes, it was difficult to not be moved by what appeared to be a touching cinematic journey that seemingly lives up to the adjectives in its title. Now, the Sony Pictures release hits theaters and indeed proves to be a heartfelt cinematic adventure, albeit a long-winded odyssey undercut by a heightened tone.
Director Kogonada’s third feature film A Big Bold Beautiful Journey stars Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell as Sarah and David, two single strangers who meet at a wedding of a mutual friend. After parting ways, the two soon find themselves drawn together again through mysterious circumstances and begin a journey through one another’s pasts as they assess their growing feelings for one another.
Those familiar with Kogonada’s previous work will know that the filmmaker has a penchant for the offbeat. His last film After Yang, which also starred Colin Farrell and is regarded by many as one of the best sci-fi films of the century, featured a strangely soft, even alluring quality as it contemplated rich themes of social connection, loss, and artificial intelligence. Even his work on the Star Wars series The Acolyte was subversive, borrowing from Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon to tell the same story from multiple, subjective perspectives. Heading into A Big Bold Beautiful Journey then, unconventionality is expected and even welcomed, although, this time around, the lack of groundedness impedes upon the emotion of the story and its characters.
Through a disjointed beginning, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey conveys to the audience that, on multiple levels, this adventure will be far from grounded. An awkward Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline strangely introduce Colin Farrell’s David to a mysterious car rental agency that will eventually see his character side-by-side with Margot Robbie’s Sarah for a sweeping, fantastical journey. David doesn’t really question how odd Waller-Bridge and Kline behave, nor does he raise his eyebrows as an elusive GPS guides him and Sarah to a series of doors that allow them to re-experience key events from their pasts. Immediately, this lack of inquiry from David clues the audience into that the film will require more suspension of disbelief than the average romance.
When Robbie and Farrell’s characters meet, the heightened nature of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey becomes even more evident. From their first conversation onward, Sarah and David don’t quite talk nor act like real people. Their banter works well, largely due to how endlessly endearing both actors are, but there is a decided awkwardness and artificiality to their dialogue, which makes their love-on-first-sight romance feel forced.
As the film progresses, each and every scene is laden with rich emotion. Unfolding much like a series of vignettes, the screenplay from Seth Reiss sees Sarah and David open one door after another that leads them to re-experience a specific moment from their past. Without exception, all of these vignettes elicit strong emotion, in large part due to how relatable and heartbreaking they are. David has the opportunity to relive his first heartbreak when he is turned down by the girl of his dreams at high school. Sarah, meanwhile, visits the hospital on the day that her mother dies. It is difficult to not be moved by these ventures into the past and wonder what it would be like for ourselves to have such an opportunity to revisit seminal moments of our lives. A scene featuring Colin Farrell alongside Hamish Linklater (Gen V, Midnight Mass) and another where he speaks with his teenage self are particularly powerful, in large part due to Farrell’s incredible, attentive, and vulnerable performance. Even as the romance between Robbie and Farrell’s characters continues to feel forced, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey triumphs with the relatable joy, devastation, heartbreak, and hope that comes with each door the duo open.
Where Kogonada’s film most greatly errs is in the discrepancy between the relatable, powerful emotions evoked and the overly heightened nature of its tone and characters. Despite strong performances from Robbie and Farrell, stilted dialogue and behavior from Sarah and David soften the emotional impact of the movie’s big moments. Obviously, the film is a fantasy, but coupling its fantastical concept with similarly unrealistic characters softens the impact of even the most emotionally resonant and universally applicable points. Far greater success would have been found had the characters and tone been more grounded as this would allow the audience to vicariously and genuinely experience Sarah and David’s histories and relate them back to their own without the emotional distance.
In part due to the repetitive structure of the film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey drags and feels far longer than its 109 minute runtime suggests. Every vignette unfolds rather similarly, with the two visiting a key moment from the past and then collaboratively pondering themes of attachment, commitment, regret, pain, and family. Eventually, this structure grows tiring as the conversations become more repetitive and predictable, although a satisfying ending ensures that the big bold beautiful journey concludes in beautiful fashion.
VERDICT: 7/10
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (mostly) lives up to the adjectives in its title, unfolding as a sweeping, fantastical tale of attachment, love, loss, and memory. After overcoming a disjointed beginning, Kogonada’s third feature film establishes a heightened tone that requires more suspension of disbelief than the average romance movie. A story that sees Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell’s characters journey through their pasts is laden with deep and powerful emotions, although the strength of these emotions are undercut by how heightened the tone and stilted the dialogue is. Bolstering strong performances from Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, who in particular excels with a poignant and vulnerable turn, the film drags with a repetitive structure, although it concludes with a satisfying ending that ensures that the characters’ big bold beautiful journey concludes in beautiful fashion. Like Kogonada’s previous films, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey makes for an unusual viewing experience. Seldom has there been a movie that elicited such powerful emotions in us, while simultaneously creating a perplexing distance from these emotions.