Sometimes, your next big adventure is just around the corner. In A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025), that’s certainly the case for Sarah (Margot Robbie) and David (Colin Farrell).
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025), directed by Kogonada and written by Seth Reiss, tells the story of Sarah and David, two people who find love in one of the oddest ways. As a GPS guides them to several doors spread along an earthy, never-ending road, Sarah and David are forced to confront their uncomfortable emotional pasts. However, their experiences ultimately lead them to find comfort in each other.
Despite the movie’s interesting premise, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey falls short in a lot of places. It tries too hard to be a grand, heartfelt, and “stereotypically classic” movie, but in doing so, it loses a lot of its connection to the audience and feels too similar to many of the movies we’ve seen before.
The generic dialogue in the film largely contributes to its inability to resonate with audiences. All of the conversations feel incredibly general, simply regurgitations of all of the cheesy romance movies that came before (e.g. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), 27 Dresses (2008), etc.). The lines, if anything, feel more fitting for a play than a movie. The characters act as caricatures or stereotypes of ordinary people, as we often see on the stage. None of the dialogue felt like something that someone would realistically say. It was also difficult to pinpoint a “unique” exchange between characters; every conversation felt predictable, mechanically driving the plot to its preordained ending.
Robbie and Farrell’s acting didn’t help. While they are both incredible actors who have led many impressive films to great success, their performances in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey lacked the passion and purpose of previous projects. The actors never fully succumbed to the heartache and struggle of their characters, remaining distant from their characters’ emotional pasts. The lines felt over-rehearsed, and at some points, it was difficult to tell if they were reading cue cards behind the camera or truly acting. From an audience perspective, it seemed as though the actors never sat with their characters to explore the possibility of complexity and nuance within these rather stereotypical figures. If the actors could have brought a new layer of depth to these characters, the film would have felt a lot less underwhelming.
Additionally, none of the characters had a proper reaction to how odd the plot was. All of a sudden, your GPS gains consciousness and brings you to a random door in the middle of the woods? And when you decide to walk into that door, you end up in a completely different space, in a different time? And nobody cares? The reaction is incredibly nonchalant for what the characters are going through, and this honestly contributes to the film feeling far removed from its audience. I truly believe that a “WTF” freakout moment in reaction to the crazy door would have made this film that much better.
The plot itself was also very predictable. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is painfully familiar in its storyline, bringing no new developments to the table. We’ve all heard the stories where one of the characters swears off all relationships, feeling that they are too damaged to be loved. Eventually, after swearing up and down, they’re no good for their partner, the stubborn one comes around, and they live happily ever after. We’ve seen this in action a million times: The Proposal (2009), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Notting Hill (1999). Yet in all of these films, there is something else unique for the film to hang its hat on: a purchased date, a fake engagement, or Hugh Grant. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey relies far too much on this love trope and not enough on what makes their story different. It feels as though every decision the protagonists make centers around their potential romantic relationship; they fail to make any decisions for themselves. While they both revisit moments from their pasts, we never see them reflect on those moments, and these scenes come across as shallow, only providing fuel to reunite the characters.
With that said, this film does some things right, and it’s unfortunate that these accomplishments are overshadowed by its general lackluster.
For example, the cinematography is absolutely wonderful. This film had some of the most beautifully shot scenes I’ve caught in a while, using this fantastic, romantic sunlight to capture most of the weighted moments. If anything, where the acting lacked, the lighting and cinematography shone, like in the moment when the two characters first saw each other, and the torrential downpour around them suddenly, and magically, ceased. The use of colors in the film was also very well done, with each character either wearing a vibrant red or blue to show their contrast. However, by the end of the film, Sarah and David had switched colors, showing their love for one another and their openness to exploring a relationship together.
It was also nice that scenes in the present were differentiated from moments in their “past lives” after entering the door, as most of the scenes after they went through the door had a grainy quality to them, while the rest of the scenes were astoundingly clear.
Another aspect of the film that was enjoyable was that, although the acting lacked in some of these parts, there were a lot of well-chosen emotional moments to portray on screen. From Sarah’s final night with her mother to David’s interaction with his younger self, the moments they chose had the potential to be formative for their characters. The execution might not have been all there, but the writers had a clear vision, having these characters go back to some of the most meaningful moments of their lives to relive them and look at them with a new perspective.
Despite the predictable ending and lackluster performances, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is still a fun movie to watch when you just need something to do. Although the love story is overly sappy and very cheesy, sometimes we all need to watch a movie like that. Movie production and acting have continued to excel so much that some of us forget about the romance movies similar to this one in the early 2000s that we loved so much, but this movie takes you back to that time.
Ultimately, if A Big Bold Beautiful Journey had leaned into all that was unique about its premise instead of relying too heavily on its predecessors, we might have gotten a concept that truly stood out. Instead, the movie will likely blend into the plethora of “cheesy rom coms”, never living up to its true potential.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is an underwhelming and odd movie, but the heartwarming moments in the movie can’t be overlooked. It’s not going to be a movie that will be nominated for any type of award in the coming years, but maybe that’s not the goal. Go watch the movie with some friends, and you’ll for sure get a couple of laughs in, while maybe shedding a tear or two, and sometimes that’s all you can ask for.
