Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie embark on ‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’—but this lifeless romance never leaves the station
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News
Two fetching stars. Zero sparks. Watching Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie fall in love should set hearts racing. But the insufferable romantic fantasy “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is so devoid of a pulse that it’s hard to believe it comes from Kogonada, the same director who gifted us the quietly luminous “Columbus.”
Farrell and Robbie, both capable of tremendous subtlety, inexplicably lack chemistry here. The screen never sizzles, nor do their interactions tug at your heart. Their exchanges land hollow. Not for nothing, but Farrell vibed more with Jenny the Donkey in “The Banshees of Inisherin” than he does with Robbie. The fault lies less with their talent than with the ham-fisted material they’re saddled with. As Sarah and David, two strangers serendipitously drawn together to revisit their past traumas, they feel more like actors dutifully reciting lines than souls colliding.
Screenwriter and Boston University grad Seth Reiss (“The Menu”) fills the script with trite relationship drama that never comes close to a genuine lived-in moment. Step right up if you want to hear tired lines like “However this plays out, it ends in me hurting you” or “You loved some version of me that’s not me.” (If you want to spend time with film couples who actually feel like real people, check out “Minnie or Moskowitz” or Jesse and Celine in “Before Sunset.”)
Instead, we’re left with free-spirited Sarah and lonely charmer David. Each rents a 1994 Saturn from a strange, generically named Car Rental Agency run by an even stranger Phoebe Waller-Bridge, doing a German accent, and Kevin Kline doing basically nothing. Sarah and David meet up at a wedding. They flirt and banter. “Would you marry me?” she asks shortly after meeting him. It’s a weird question to ask someone you’ve known for just 10 minutes. Later, she hooks up with another guy. The next day, David and Sarah run into each other at a random Burger King, and both start to realize that their encounter is not just a casual attraction. When the magical GPS (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith) asks if they want to embark on a “big, bold, beautiful journey,” they reluctantly go, guided to doors that turn out to be portals to pivotal moments in their past. Buckle up.
First stop: a 19th-century lighthouse David used to haunt. Then, an art museum tied to Sarah’s mother. David gets a nostalgia tour of high school heartbreak and even a chance to play video games alongside his 15-year-old self. Sarah, meanwhile, is forced to face the guilt she carries over missing her mother’s death (Lily Rabe), a moment she skipped out on to shag her college professor. The contrast between the two characters couldn’t be more heavy-handed: David, earnest and steady, and Sarah, the emotionally reckless girl who sleeps around. To make matters worse, costuming hides Robbie’s real-life baby bump under the most garish outfits—think yellow sweaters with red pants, an aesthetic fit only for Ronald McDonald.
As the miles pass, another door leads them to a coffee shop where they confront their jilted exes. After that, the path is familiar and you’ve long stopped caring: David and Sarah cycle through a romantic push-pull before predictably deciding to go their separate ways.
There’s a bit of fleeting fun in the movie. Farrell doffs his shirt briefly, and the film’s most entertaining sequence occurs in David’s high school musical, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” Farrell sings and dances, and clever staging and choreography inject energy—a reminder of what the film might have been if it trusted its own charm. Yet for most of the runtime, rote dialogue about fear of commitment and finding happiness drags the story into tedium.
The film’s moral—that love requires leaps of faith—is hammered home with relentless literalism. Needle drops like Pete Townshend’s “Let My Love Open the Door” coincide with characters literally opening doors. It’s on-the-nose to the point of exasperation.
In the end, “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is visually pretty but narratively stilted. Its premise is universally relatable—we all reflect on missteps and wish for second chances—but the execution is heavy-handed, performances curiously unengaging, and the romance frustratingly inert. It’s a detour down a Long and Yawning Road rather than a bold journey of the heart.
‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’
Rating: R for language
Cast: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell
Director: Kogonada
Writer: Seth Reiss
Running time: 111 minutes
Where to watch: In theaters
Grade: C
Boston Movie News 