Review by Brad Balfour, Arts Editor
Film: “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey”
Director: Kogonada
Cast: Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Kevin Kline, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Lily Rabe, Jodie Turner-Smith, Billy Magnussen, Sarah Gadon, Brandon Perea, Chloe East, Hamish Linklater, Lucy Thomas, Yuvi Hecht, Calahan Skogman, Jacqueline Novak, Jennifer Grant, Shelby Simmons
Margot Robbie’s recently released first film since “Barbie” is “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey.” It was expected to re-position her in a deeply moving meaningful film addressing big issues. Nonetheless, it has missed its mark.
Oscar nominees Robbie and Colin Farrell (who also won a Golden Globe and had two recent Emmy noms) star together in this movie directed by Kogonada (Park Joong Eun), the Korean-American filmmaker best known for critically-acclaimed indies like “Columbus” and “After Yang.”
Rather than being based on a popular novel, it’s an original movie written by another acclaimed creator, Seth Reiss. He’s a writer from “Late Night with Seth Meyers” who conceived of the quirky horror film, “The Menu.”
Matching Robbie with Farrell meant that, at a minimum, the screen would be filled with pretty people to look at. But beyond their visual appeal, both are extremely talented. Farrell has certainly honed his skills over the years, while Robbie is a modern-day icon exemplifying the alluring sex symbol.
The film starts when David (Farrell) discovers a boot on his car and goes to a strange rental place for a ride. So does Sarah. The world’s most bizarre Rental Car counter is staffed by two quirky characters played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) and Kevin Kline (“A Fish Called Wanda”). There’s a fantastical GPS system in their matching 1994 Saturns. It separately directs David and Sarah to various places, even to the same roadside diner where they order fast food cheeseburgers.
Eventually, they travel in the same Saturn, with the GPS sending them to a series of doors — each connected to past moments in their lives. A red door leads to a lighthouse, another to a high school musical production. Next one to a special museum, and yet another to hospital visits. They’re partly a trip down memory lane and partly meant to be a psychological or spiritual awakening.
David and Sarah share the journey with each other — good memories and bad. While they’ve each professed earlier — especially Sarah — that they’re bad with relationships, a bond is growing. Stepping through the doors exposes bits of their lives and personalities to each other that might take years to be discovered in the normal course of a relationship. Dealing with one’s own past is a step in moving forward, and an even bigger step is accepting another’s life to share. Or so it seems in this hyper-symbolic, philosophically oriented narrative.
Regrets, missed opportunities, grief, and hurdles are all part of the issues that this film addresses. With such supporting cast members as Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, Billy Magnussen, Jodi Turner-Smith, and Sarah Gadon, the landscape of the film should be filled with effective truth tellers. Nonetheless, they’re hampered by stilted moments in the script, some of which seem forced at best.
Whether it’s viewed as a search for one’s own soul or for a soulmate, this film deals with the baggage that goes along with being a grown-up. It’s actually for that reason that the film is worth viewing. In many ways, I’m glad to see something like this because such storytelling could only happen in movies. Fantasy elements use the cinematic environment to address such issues in a way that a realistic film wouldn’t or can’t.
Though it’s seems to be targeting younger women, this is another movie that received an R-rating for horrible “language. This reality presents yet another conundrum about the film: it’s a hard-nosed tale addressing the problems of life while also being a romantic, life-affirming fantasy with interesting ideas. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” tells a tale that doesn’t exactly reach where it wants to go.