A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Gets a Not-So-Beautiful Reality Check: Farrell and Robbie Tank a Time‑Travel Road Trip

Hello, I am Maya Rivers, and yes I am that Wannabe Poet who can’t resist turning a dented silver screen into lilting verse, even when the movie barely fits the rhyme. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey arrives with the aroma of a midnight road trip and leaves with a whiff of damp roadside skepticism. The film in question, directed by Kogonada, tries to stitch a romantically magical realism patchwork around two singletons — David, played by Colin Farrell, and Sarah, portrayed by Margot Robbie — who meet at a rain-soaked wedding and embark on a time-warped voyage. The result, alas, lands more in the lane of “meh” than “magnifique,” a 108 minute ride that feels longer than its runtime and thinner than a coffee filter.

The opening gambit is straight from a catalog of familiar devices: a car that doubles as a portal, a GPS voice that sounds overly earnest, and a premise that invites the audience to believe in second chances, nostalgia, and the transformative power of a road trip. The GPS, voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith, asks the bareknuckle question, “Would you like to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey?” The words promise grandeur, but the delivery is more spreadsheet than symphony, a mood ring that never quite shifts hue. Farrell sings a Broadway tune, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” and one wonders if the moment is a wink from the film about its own performative veneer. The dialogue and pacing lean toward a soft, almost whispering humor, but the chorus of sameness muffles the punch.

In the emotional center, Farrell embodies David, a man who seems to drift between memory lanes as if the steering wheel were a suggestion rather than a command. Robbie’s Sarah is a manic pixie dream girl at a gentler cadence, a beacon that should ignite warmth but instead burns with a clinical glow. The pair drift through a succession of forgettable forests and art galleries, stepping through doorways that should surprise but instead offer polite nods to déjà vu. The film domesticates magic into a bland itinerary, and the heart of the story — the tension between living in the present and revisiting the past — feels as though it’s been dialed down to coffee-shop temperature.

Supporting performances attempt to inject texture. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Kevin Kline play car rental clerks, and their cameo lands with a ping more than a shove, a reminder that wit once lived in sharper corners of cinema. Yet even their presence cannot rescue the overall mood from dragging into a soft, inert drift. The script, credited to David Reiss, carries a memory of cleverness from The Menu but never quite serves the mind a glimpse of surprise here. The film’s attempt to conjure a road movie that doubles as a metaphor for memory and growth collapses into a glacial glide toward an ending that lacks a warm beacon to light the final miles.

What remains is a murmur of regret, a movie that wanders through modern art museums and childhood bedrooms with the air of someone who forgot the map. The critic’s sting is real: the picture is not big, bold, or beautiful in practice, even if the ambition glints. If there is a bright thread, it is the performance chemistry between Farrell and Robbie that, on a better stage, could have sparked something gleaming. Here, though, it flickers and dimms in the dim glow of the projector—an alloy of potential that never fully fuses.

As we roll the credits, the question lingers: was this journey merely a scenic detour or a missed exit on a highway to meaning? The answer seems to be the latter, a reminder that not every magical car ride earns a standing ovation. Still, the film offers a brittle slice of cinematic mood, a reminder that time can be a fickle traveler. What to watch next? Look for stories where the road trip doubles as a revelation, not a routine, where the engine hums with possibility rather than polite despair.

Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post
Attribution: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Leonardo DiCaprio 2019 by Glenn Francis — Toglenn (CC BY-SA 4.0) (OV)