A Big Bold Beautiful Journey – Was Actually Kind of Dull

Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie), the two protagonists of this film, both

coincidentally hire a car from the same car rental service to attend the same wedding. This

winds up taking them on a journey which is meant to be big, bold and Beautiful. But despite

the unconventional telling of the story at its core, it felt boring and predictable.

The journey involves a series of destinations, doors to their past. Where they get to relive

chore moments in their life without the ability to change anything, but to learn from them.

Each door enables the characters to reveal something about themselves and their past in an

attempt to explain why they are the way they are.

The concept of this movie is something that I would usually enjoy. The story of two

commitment-phobic people going on some sort of journey and learning that love is opening

yourself up to the possibility of pain, and sometimes that pain is worth it. Eternal Sunshine of

the Spotless Mind or 500 Days of Summer are two movies that do this concept very well.

However, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is not one of them.

In parts, the film is really beautiful, with visually stunning cinematography and a bold colour

palette. Throughout the film, colour is used as a storytelling aid. The more emotionally

revealing and mundane scenes are being stripped of colour. Then the scenes where the

characters are not being true to themselves, almost living in a fantasy world, become vibrant

and full of life.

I appreciate how the audience is just thrown into accepting the whimsical, nonsensical world

this is set in, from the first introduction to the car rental service, the guardian angel like GPS

and the unexplained, unquestioned presence of these doors. However, a film intended to

leave an emotional impact on the audience should still require realism in the writing and

acting.

We are introduced to Sarah and David as two single, emotionally avoidant people who prefer

to be alone. Realistic versions of these characters would typically need to earn trust to reveal

intimate parts of themselves. Yet Sarah and David manage to have emotionally vulnerable

conversations from the get-go. Which comes across as an attempt to force chemistry

between them, but that forced chemistry never feels real. You don’t root for these characters

to end up together. In fact, it is almost disappointing when they do.

Another example of this premature trust between characters happens after the second door,

still during the first act of the film. This is when Margot Robbie’s character, Sarah, reveals

she cheats in every single relationship. A revealing conversation like this happening so early

into the movie feels unearned for both the characters and the audience, as they are yet to

face any challenges.

Having the main characters reveal their flaws this early into the movie led me to feel

uninvested in any future character development, robbing the audience of watching them

slowly start to trust each other, as the writing didn’t allow the characters to build chemistry

naturally. This makes the journey feel pointless and repetitive. Developments like this would

have been a lot more impactful on the audience if saved for the emotional build of the film,

which I believe is the second-to-last door.

This door was my standout scene of the film. Sarah meets a past boyfriend, and David

meets his old fiancée. However, instead of it playing out as a memory, the fiancé and

boyfriend start demanding to know why they didn’t work out. This is the first time we see the

protagonists faced with the consequences of their actions, allowing the opportunity for

genuine development and honesty. We find out that Sarah will hurt someone before they can

hurt her, and David is obsessed with the chase, but will quickly get bored once he has

caught the girl of his dreams.

This is the first scene where the audience can fully connect and relate to the story being told.

Unfortunately, it has no future impact on the story or the characters.

Colin Farrell's performance was the most heart-warming aspect throughout the film, with

believable reactions to relieving some of the most heart breaking moments in your life.

behind one of the doors is a hospital where he finds his dad visiting a premature, very sick

David. This is definitely the most emotionally moving scene, due to the realism that Farrell's acting brings to an unrealistic scenario. His acting throughout is what kept me invested in an

otherwise boring story.

On the other hand, Margot Robbie’s performance left much to be desired. As much as

Robbie is a powerhouse actress who can definitely pull in an audience, her character was

lacking depth. Whether it was the poor attempt at writing an emotionally complex female

character, or just a wrong casting choice, the character of Sarah came across as a poor

parody of a manic pixie dream girl. Her storyline was so predictable, along with the lack of

originality and feeling Robbie brought to the role, I very quickly lost interest.

Overall, the film has a very interesting concept with a lot of potential, but it never seems to

get the pieces to fit. Resulting in a film that may look beautiful, but lacks a big, bold

emotional impact that the title and the trailer promised you.