Running Time: 108 minutes
This feature from Sony Pictures opens exclusively at theaters on September 19th, 2025.
While I wouldn’t say that as a moviegoer romance films are necessarily my favorite genre, there have been several that have made an impression on me over the past year, including the Icelandic effort Touch as well as We Live in Time. Even Fly Me to the Moon had its plusses. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is the latest star-studded romance to hit movie screens. It’s an impressively mounted production that attempts to add a wrinkle or two to the familiar formula, but ultimately fails to generate much heat between its leads.
David (Colin Farrell) is a single man with no interest in having a partner after a bad breakup. This is much to the chagrin of family members, who pester him to open himself up to others. After he finds himself without a car on his way to a wedding, he visits an unusual rental agency with incredibly quirky employees (Phoebe Waller Bridge and Kevin Kline). They provide him with a 90s-era vehicle and demand he use a special GPS. After arriving at the event, David meets Sarah (Margot Robbie), a woman just as averse to getting into romantic entanglements as he is. But after going their separate ways, they run into one another on the road. The two end up forced together with that magical GPS, leading them on a road trip through their pasts, where they try to identify the personal issues that have caused so many failed relationships.
Right off the top, the rental agency offers unsolicited advice, stating that while everyone hides themselves and puts on something of a performance in public, these scenarios do reveal truths about oneself. So, what follows are a series of bizarre scenarios in which David and Sarah pass through portals and visit some of their most uncomfortable moments. The two initially argue that their actions prove why they don’t belong in relationships, but the exercise soon forces them to admit a few of their failings.
It’s an interesting idea and there are some impressive visuals, like brightly colored, solitary doors in green and brown natural landscapes, in addition to exaggerated versions of past events. These sequences look pretty, but the story embraces the artifice so much that it puts us at a distance. Even early on when they are in an environment that may be real (a reasonably bustling fast-food restaurant), there is a lack of background noise that pulls the viewer out of the scene. As the characters are pulled into more unusual environments, their interactions feel forced. As good as the performers are, their heartfelt conversations and eventual revelations don’t resonate and we never really connect to the characters or care about whether or not they will end up together.
Perhaps another odd factor is the conceit itself involving the car rental agency. It becomes clear very early what they seem to be doing, and one can’t help but wonder, given the attitude of the leads, why anyone isn’t asking about their track record or examples of past successes. Perhaps the story is telling us that we aren’t entirely in control of our fate, but one can’t help but feel that the protagonists are being pulled together against their will. The ultimate message relayed feels, in some respects, contradictory.
At least, while the main plot has problems, the interactions between the characters and their parents do resonate. There is a sweet hospital-set scene between David and his father (Hamish Linklater), as well as a scene in which Sarah talks to her mother (Lily Rabe), that actually does make an impact. Mind you, all the leads really learn is that their parents have always cared and worried greatly for their well-being. But these conversations do involve some talk about fears and anxieties that are more authentic and land in a way that the main story never does.
The movie looks pretty, takes viewers on a trip, makes a couple of interesting detours and attempts a different take on the genre. Unfortunately, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey doesn’t manage to get viewers emotionally invested in the success of the relationship between its two leads and unlike the best of recent genre efforts, doesn’t create much in the way of dramatic sparks.