“Do you want to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey?”
It’s quite an ambitious promise that the premise of Kogonada’s new film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, makes with the question posed to its two leads, played by Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie. The new fantasy film directed by Kogonada and written by Seth Reiss, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is certainly beautiful, filled with striking and evocative images befitting the After Yang and Columbus filmmaker. But is it big? Kind of — the so-called journey whisks Farrell and Robbie’s David and Sarah away through moments in each other’s lives, past and present. Is it bold? Not quite — there’s something a little too familiar about how it dabbles in magical realism, recalling films like Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle with such breathless affection that they even got longtime Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi to score the movie. But there is one thing for sure about A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: it’s unapologetically, swooningly romantic.
