Time to introduce you to someone. The YouTube creator who calls himself Kogonada kept his real name (Park Joong-eun) a secret for quite a long time. His previous films Columbus and After Yang both earned mentions in my end-of-year movie honors, and now his A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is his first movie to actually play in theaters in Tarrant County. It is also the first one that he did not write the script for, and I’m sad to say that it’s also his weakest, which is not a coincidence. Still, he is a unique visual stylist, which might be enough to get you in the door.
The movie begins with David Longley (Colin Farrell) finding his car booted for a parking violation, so he travels to a friend’s wedding by renting a 1994 Saturn from a rental agent (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) who directs David like he’s an actor auditioning for a role and keeps shouting “Fuck yeah!” in a wobbly Dutch accent. At the event, he meets Sarah Myers (Margot Robbie), who has gotten there in that rental agent’s only other car, which is another 1994 Saturn. When Sarah’s car refuses to start, David’s GPS (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith) tells him to give her a ride and then leads both of them to mysterious doors located in remote areas that open onto time periods from their past, and occasionally onto a bare soundstage where they act out scenarios that they wish had happened.
Kogonada and his cinematographer Benjamin Loeb favor saturated colors as our two protagonists drive through the lush countryside. The piano-and-string score by Joe Hisaishi (who usually does the music for Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films) pairs up well with this, less so with the soundtrack songs by the likes of Gracie Abrams and Laufey. The movie’s most sustained period of success comes when the movie bursts into song and dance. Having traveled back to his high-school days, David has to reprise his 15-year-old self’s performance in the lead role of his school’s production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He wanders off the musical’s script trying to win back his high school crush (Chloe East) who is portraying Rosemary, and when she flees the stage, Sarah stands up in the audience and sings her part in “Been a Long Day.” Who knew Farrell could dance like he does here?
Sadly, the script by Seth Reiss doesn’t hold up. Both Columbus and After Yang were built on slender stories, but Kogonada’s rigor as a writer made their acting and visuals shine. Here the changes of scene feel arbitrary, the touches of absurd humor fall flat, and the dialogue is too often flowery. These characters’ respective childhood traumas have made them into jaded adults who repeat the same cycles of behavior, but seeing them break out of those isn’t gratifying. The scene with Sarah visiting her mother (Lily Rabe) on her deathbed is identical to similar scenes in a thousand movies. I can sit in a movie theater and bask in the charm of the two lead actors, but if you really want to see what this filmmaker is truly capable of.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey
Starring Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell. Directed by Kogonada. Written by Seth Reiss. Rated R.
