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Big, Bold, and Beautiful, But Missing Something Nonetheless

Often the best romance movies, and consequently the hardest to make in this day and age, are those that express and invite no cynicism whatsoever. That are big and brash in their statements and conceits without needing to disarm the audience, and that will sometimes set aside logic to be driven on pure feeling. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey requires you to buy into the notion of a magic GPS connecting soulmates, for those soulmates to follow it mostly without question into the strange and bizarre flights of fancy it sets out for them, and that these involve literally living out past events of their lives to convey a better sense of their identities and desires. This movie in these and other respects evokes strong comparison to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but unlike that film there is no in-universe rational explanation for the experiences of its characters. They just take it as they go, and it is something of a big bold risk for director Kogonada to set out his film that way, so stark a leap as it is for general audiences.
It isn’t quite so for me, but I do find myself a touch more reticent to it than I was to Kogonada’s previous features -especially his subtle masterpiece After Yang, one of the best movies of 2022. There is a blistering sentimentality that runs through this movie and its characters' somewhat strange comprehension of their reality while the themes it is in service of don't always rise to its occasion. The selling of the movie as a feel-good romantic comedy-drama doesn't help things. And yet I can't deny that some of Kogonada's serene magic works wonders here.
Worth noting, the film is written by Seth Reiss and not Kogonada. Its narrative concerns two people who meet by fate at a wedding. Prior to the wedding, David (Colin Farrell) is in need of a rental car, but the car dealership he is essentially summoned to asks some very odd questions of him and pressures him into taking a car with their own GPS installed. This GPS, which appears sentient as it addresses David by name, directs him to the wedding where he meets fellow Chicagoan Sarah (Margot Robbie), with whom he flirts for a little bit before pulling away from the prospect of taking things further. Prompted by the GPS though, he runs into her again and she joins him on the road when her car breaks down. What follows are a series of stops by the GPS at several standing doors off the road -each leading David and Sarah into a past formative moment of their lives, the two getting to know and fall for each other through sharing their histories and vulnerabilities.
Aspects of Eternal Sunshine crossed with Before Sunrise and even a little bit of All of Us Strangers, but still a pretty singular interpretation of a romance explored through magical realism. There are some quirky rhythms to the world David and Sarah already inhabit -emphasized most clearly at that dealership run by a ponderous Kevin Kline and a forceful German Phoebe Waller-Bridge- but it isn't so alien from the world created for After Yang, just brighter and more sensational. In fact in style it is reminiscent of many an international romantic film where a suspension of disbelief in its reality is part of the charm, like Amelie or Black Orpheus.
However, this film is not on a level with those -some merits of its style notwithstanding. A part of it may be the inclusion of a technological component. For whatever reason the doors to the past are more acceptable to me than a matchmaker GPS directing them to those doors. This plot device has the effect of making the romance out to be more manipulation than fate, which clearly is not the thematic intent of the filmmakers. We do see that David and Sarah each have the capacity to resist the GPS, but in almost never choosing to, it is moot as an option. They do have a romantic chemistry, Farrell and Robbie are terrific together -and the movie allows them to play some great raw and complex emotions and relate a level of thoughtfulness and profound meditation that is perhaps not always open to them as actors. For Farrell it is almost a 180 from the kind of performance he gave in After Yang. As much as you want them to be together though, as much as the journey develops their baggage and foibles and specifically what each other can fulfil for them, it still feels disingenuous by the device that leads them there.
The sequences themselves are really interesting -with a few huge leaps in stylistic execution. The past time spaces have an effect of intruding on David and Sarah’s respective head-spaces. In his high school, David finds himself enchanted by his old crush and reenacting exactly the circumstances that led to his first heartbreak -even in the knowledge of how it would go. This involves a school production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, complete with extensive samplings of a few of its songs. Sarah does the same thing but for a more traumatic event -her learning of the death of her mother which occurred while she was having an affair, the impetus of her fear of intimacy. Each of these sequences are well-produced and vivid manifestations of the kind of vulnerable points of deep conversation necessary to cultivate a healthy relationship. Strange though they are, there is a beauty to them, and in particular to how the pain they evoke draws David and Sarah closer together, resistant though Sarah in particular remains.
Yet the depth of sentiment still struggles to relate in the marginal degree of their relationship. It might be sturdier if there was some time and weight to it, but it is all lofty romanticism in spite of the pointed acknowledgement of the rough patches ahead given their turbulent personalities. A lot rests on those flowery notions of love and companionship that in spite of some worthy attempts by the director and actors the script doesn't manage to earn. I want to buy into its virtues but I find myself unable to fully.
Separately, both David and Sarah experience epiphanies in the climax that take different forms but relate in how they bring about a personal catharsis, allowing for a last bridge to be crossed for their coming together. Hers is stronger than his, a more affecting trauma -and it is consequently given more screen-time by Kogonada. They are very sweet scenes though -in isolation- yet I feel such important steps should be taken together, if just to give the film a chance of shoring up some legitimacy to the relationship just a little more.
By far the movie's richest quality, which does an apt job accentuating an emotionality the film might not otherwise rise to is the exquisitely pretty score by Joe Hisaishi. The film is notable for being the first American movie the renowned maestro of many a Studio Ghibli film has composed the music for (really he was the only fitting follow-up to the composer of After Yang, the late great Ryuichi Sakamoto). And it is unmistakably his work, with its moving minimalist piano chords and warmly sombre strings. There is not quite an overarching motif here but it doesn't matter, it is healing to listen to and perfectly complimentary to the mood of each given scene, bolstering the experience of watching the movie as a whole. I hope it is not his last international movie (or his last Kogonada movie) by a long shot.
It could be fairly argued that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey lives up to its title. Conceptually it is big and certainly bold, and there is a lot that is beautiful in it. But these alone don't make the movie successful, and though I admire the boldness, it doesn't pan out as strongly as suggested. This is a movie rife for people to pick apart (in some regards quite unfairly) for being weird for its own sake. Certainly I trust the validity of Kogonada's intentions, but they aren't as reasonably communicated as in his past work. This is a movie with sparks of magic that I appreciate, and I am compelled by. If it disappoints it is only in the most interesting of ways -always preferable to dullness or derivativeness. But it unquestionably falls short of its evocative and emotional aims that only the most intense of romantics will be truly affected by its platitudes.

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