Movie Review – ‘A Big Bold Beautiful Journey’ is a big, beautiful, unconventional mess

The signs were there. Sony spent next to nothing on marketing. The studio skipped early screenings for audiences. Even the film’s acronym turned into an unfortunate slang word. But the clearest red flag for A Big Bold Beautiful Journey was that its own stars struggled to explain what it was about. That’s usually the death knell — people won’t buy tickets to a movie they can’t wrap their heads around before walking into the theater.

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey follows the daylong adventure of David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie). The film opens with David trying to get to a wedding, only to find his car booted. Conveniently, a nearby wall displays a sign for the vaguely named “The Car Rental Agency.” Inside, he encounters two oddball employees — played by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge — in a mostly empty warehouse with just a couple of old Saturns on hand. Waller-Bridge’s character obsesses over selling David an upgrade with GPS service, sprinkling in random F-bombs for no apparent reason.

At the wedding, David and Sarah finally cross paths — not with a “meet cute,” but more of a “meet odd,” which fits the film’s offbeat tone. Within minutes, Sarah swings from warning David she doesn’t want to hurt him to suggesting marriage. Both are haunted by their own demons and resistant to connection, though for very different reasons. They go their separate ways… until fate (and that trusty GPS) nudges them into a journey neither expected.

Guided by the car’s navigation system, the pair stumble across a series of mysterious doors scattered in the wild, each one opening onto a pivotal moment from their past. A lighthouse David once overlooked. The hospital where Sarah’s mother died before she could say goodbye. Each door forces them to relive unfinished business, often repeating mistakes before slowly learning to confront their pain head-on. Over time, the journey pushes them toward growth — and toward each other.

To Sony’s credit, greenlighting an original story in today’s era of endless remakes and franchises is a risk worth applauding. The screenplay from Seth Reiss, a former writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers and co-writer of The Menu, languished for years on The Black List, a survey of Hollywood’s best unproduced scripts. On paper, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey has the makings of something magical. But on screen, the magic never quite materializes. The dialogue is clunky, emotional beats don’t land as intended, and while the cinematography is gorgeous, much of it is drowned in darkness. Worst of all, despite Farrell and Robbie being two of the most beautiful actors working today — and showing electric chemistry in interviews — they never really ignite on screen.

In the end, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is a frustrating mix: ambitious, occasionally beautiful, and undeniably original, but ultimately underwhelming. It’s a film that wants to sweep you away on an emotional odyssey but keeps tripping over its own shoelaces. You can admire Sony for taking the gamble, but you’ll likely leave wishing the film lived up to its title.