A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

 

This review may contain spoilers!

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a magic-realist romance film following two strangers: David and Sarah. When they both wind up with cars from a mysterious rental agency, the lives of this pair are forced to intersect. The journey this puts them on is one of healing and love, with all the messy bits.

This film is certainly one of those strange and abstract features that looks a little more tame in the trailer than it does in totality. However, there were quite a few golden moments in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey that really shone through. As a concept, I found the magic realism element of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey quite creative. There was a lot of freedom in our main characters exploring one another's memories and developing a better understanding of self through the passage of time. The moments in which David and Sarah healed were the most significant, certainly the most moving. These are deeply flawed characters, people who work their way out of narcissistic tendencies or self-destructive behaviour through the journey they go on. Watching David hold himself to a higher standard by connecting with the nature of his parents is quite beautiful. The scene between him and his Dad in the hospital might very well be the best in the film. While Sarah is constantly trying to unpack her grief over the loss of her mother, she works towards giving herself permission to feel vulnerable again. This film isn't always clear, nor is it well-constructed, but it does have a lot of good to say about the more complex nature of relationships and the baggage both individuals bring to a life of contentment.

Kogonada is an interesting director who isn't strictly conventional. Something he does beautifully is provide a clear mastery of colour, lighting and staging. This whole film feels like it has a very interesting sense of aesthetic and makes strong efforts to be unique. The score is melodic and remarkably poignant, while the soundtrack is a relatively indie sound filled with yearning and questioning.

Colin Farrell, who played David, is not in his strongest role here, but he proves a capable lead; Farrell takes David on a very personal, introspective journey. Hamish Linklater, who played David's Father, gives an absolute powerhouse performance in this feature; Linklater's hospital scene moved me incredibly and is some of his best work to date. Chloe East, who played Cheryl, is quite convincing as the high school crush who is so removed from the person who loves her; the scene where Farrell confesses his feelings for her is quite a devastating moment.

However, the best performance came from Margot Robbie, who played Sarah. This role is a bit wild and chaotic when we first meet her; she throws herself into partying and hooking up with strangers. I liked how Robbie toyed with Farrell's David at first; she was interested in him, but as another man to break herself upon. The journey Sarah goes through is one of understanding why she doesn't allow herself to feel vulnerable anymore or to be hurt. We see the raw pain and grief Sarah still feels as Robbie very steadily peels back the layers of her character's psyche. We learn that Sarah had this incredible bond with her mother and felt tremendous regret for the time her mother passed. Watching Robbie play the scene in which she is reunited with a memory of her mother is one of the strongest emotional beats of the film, and she had me hooked throughout. Robbie delivers a performance that very strongly shows a character who needs and starts to heal.

This is a very unconventional film, which allows for some creativity and themes to be celebrated, but also a storytelling approach that really didn't work well throughout. The film got off to an awful first act. The magic realist aspect was engaged almost immediately in a very confusing manner; you have to rush to get on board with what is being presented here. The magic realism across A Big Bold Beautiful Journey isn't especially viewer-friendly, often swinging into wild and varied directions. Some of these moments have some incredible imagination and impact, but they often lack coherence, which undermines the film as a whole. We also don't get that introduction element at the start of the film; David and Sarah are shoved in front of us and then promptly shoved together. We don't get a moment to catch our breath and learn who these people are on a basic level. The film zigs and zags throughout, sometimes moving fast and sometimes slow. The biggest failing this film has is that it has the basic bones of a romance film, but the romance component of this film feels the least satisfying. The characters don't connect in a way that makes you believe in their relationship; rather, it feels like the story is telling you that they have found one another and will wind up together.

As a visual film, this is such an oddity for me. Everything within the lens of the camera is gorgeous; the colour palette of this film is wonderful. But the shots themselves are so bland and simplistic, there's no creativity in how the camera itself is actually utilised. The editing also has a basic cutting style that only piles onto the pacing problems this film is rife with.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline, who played the Female Cashier and the Mechanic respectively, are a strange, mismatched pair who fail to serve the magic realism angle well; Waller-Bridge's German accent schtick yanked me out of the film full force. Jodie Turner-Smith, who voiced the GPS, is an unimpressive element of this film; I didn't really care for this aspect of the film and found the GPS being characterised to be quite a lacking element. Lily Rabe, who played Sarah's Mother, feels rather flat for her scenes; Rabe leaves Robbie to do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting for their scenes.

A muddled and confusing film that can't be slighted for its ability to be both imaginative and beautiful. I would give A Big Bold Beautiful Journey a 6.5/10.