A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – Two strangers who meet at a mutual friend’s wedding have the chance to relive important moments from their pasts, illuminating the path that led them to the present and gaining the opportunity to change their futures.

My Take – While romance stories are a dime a dozen, this latest from director Kogonada, who with the critical success of his first two features, Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), proved to be one of the most interesting and philosophical voices to emerge in recent American independent cinema, dared to be different.

Written by Seth Reiss (The Menu), the film had all the right ingredients in order to make an emotionally satisfying and highly enjoyable romantic drama about love, loss and the fear of commitment, with a let’s-go-on-an-adventure fantasy twist. However, despite the star power of its two considerably talented stars, a whimsical premise and a production value to boot, the unconventional film fails to leave a mark.

Yes, the film may have looked good on the paper as it wants to engage us in heady conceits, transport us to another place, and say something about how we forge lasting relationships and memories. But in execution, its magical realism falls flat, and instead comes across as corny, dreamy, and clichéd.

Simply told, in its attempt to be different, it forgets to be emotionally engaging in the process. Leaving us with director Kogonada’s first misstep and a strong case for the skilled filmmaker to return to self-generated original screenplays.

The story follows David (Colin Farrell), a single man, who’s heading to a friend’s wedding, hundreds of miles away, only to find that his car has a boot on it. Looking around, he spots a poster for a car rental agency, with a broken heart symbol featured on it. Sorely in need as the rain keeps pouring on David ends up at an eccentric agency run by two individuals (Phoebe Waller-Bridge & Kevin Kline).

Mysteriously, they even have his head-shot on the table, even though he doesn’t remember taking that specific photo. After a bewildering conversation in which they insist he take the car’s GPS, they assign him a vehicle, and he goes on his way. At the wedding, David meets Sarah (Margot Robbie), who is also single but has little interest in jumping into a relationship.

Throughout the night they end up speaking to each other a few times, but play it rather cool, and the next day, they both find themselves back on the road. However, the cars and the GPS they arrived in have other plans, as they routed towards a Burger King. Following which the two eventually join forces on a big bold beautiful journey into their pasts, which might grant them a second chance at life and open doors towards a more positive future.

Without a doubt, this is a handsomely made film, the production design, costume choices, and overall visual aesthetic managing to be wholly immersive and enveloping. These choices help elevate what could’ve been extremely by-the-numbers direction and storytelling.

The film also has a handful of effectively warm and tender scenes that not only help flesh out the respective pasts of both David and Sarah, but provide an insight into their apathetic and defensive nature toward love and relationships in general in the present. These flaws in their characters have caused them much pain both in the past and the present.

There are several sequences in which these characters discuss their imperfections with each other. But every line either sounds unnatural or cliché, the foul language feels forced, and a musical sequence in the middle of the film made me physically cringe from awkwardness.

Sure, with all good fantasy romances, there is a suspension of disbelief involved. Viewers must buy into the notion that these two beautiful strangers could be guided by a magical GPS to random points in their lives. Which wouldn’t have been be that hard, considering the sizzling chemistry between Farrell and Robbie, but Seth Reiss’ script doesn’t have the dramatic heft to help us feel their pain. This writing robs us of connecting with our two protagonists, leaving us in a disconcerting emotional state that should, technically, be fulfilling but actually feels relatively empty.

Indeed, there are touching moments here and there, like when David finds himself comforting his dad, then a nervous new father, (Hamish Linklater). Or when Sarah gets to be 12 again and relive a precious evening with her mom (Lily Rabe), before her untimely death. But even these poignant scenes feel like laborious stepping stones on route to a predictable outcome: David and Sarah are meant to be together, and should just get over their commitment-phobia already and take the plunge.

There is a nice concept buried underneath the tidy cuteness, a generous encouragement to not let all of life’s baggage get so heavy that it halts forward momentum. And in the hands of someone else and not Kogonada, who works best when directing his own scripts and has a very particular aesthetic, Reiss’s screenplay could have been more lighter and playful.

Performance wise, Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, two of the most talented and versatile actors working today, bring their A-game. Farrell shines as the romantic lead, a character audiences haven’t seen him portray in a while. Robbie, too, is charming and delivers in the film’s most emotional moments.

The supporting cast comprising of Phoebe Waller Bridge, Kevin Kline, Lily Rabe, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, Brandon Perea, Chloe East, and Hamish Linklater appear too briefly to leave a stronger impact. On the whole, ‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey‘ is a generic fantasy road trip feature undone by its syrupy, over-romanticized approach.