By Riley Lovering Spencer
What would you do if you had adventure thrust upon you? Would you turn away? Or would you fully accept the unknown ahead of you and drive until it’s finished? In Kogonada’s 2025 film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, we see what can happen if you decide to follow your adventure without knowing what comes next.
Starring Colin Farrell as David and Margot Robbie as Sarah, we are introduced to David as he finds out that his car has been ticketed and booted on the day he’s supposed to be going to a wedding. Forcing him to rent a car from a ‘FAR from normal’ car rental agency, David heads to the wedding and meets Sarah, as they both have attended solo. After being introduced to each other through a friend and the awkward small talk of two strangers at a social gathering finishes, they go their separate ways. They never assume that they would meet again, much less embark on an adventure that would change them forever.
Throughout this film, Kogonada explores the idea of sharing your life with someone, and what that means; The things you want to share with people and the things you don’t, and what it would look like if you literally walked with someone through their past. We watch as David and Margot explore each other’s important life moments, learning about each other on the way as well as learning about themselves.
The way that this movie explores characters’ backgrounds is unlike any movie I have seen before. The idea of taking a metaphorical experience of walking through one’s past and making it so physical is a fascinating way to move the plot along and tell the story that Kogonada wanted to tell. Accompanied by beautiful visuals and amazing shots, you are drawn into the story and brought along on their journey of self reflection as the characters are going through it themselves.
One thing that I really enjoyed about this film was how the memories of these characters aren’t ‘one note’. We experience all the important, formative memories that a human experiences with the characters. From mundane to happy to fantastical to gutting, we walk through all the things that made the characters who they are and built them to the moment that we meet them. We see their flaws and their strengths and where that came from in their past. You are drawn along the storytelling of the characters’ growth and flailings as they are experienced in real time. On top of that, you see the self-reflection of David and Sarah, as they now see the things they have done with these new, and more mature eyes. It is something that I haven’t seen many films explore in the past.
As the movie progressed, I felt that I understood David and Sarah more and more, and not in that way that a film normally accomplishes this. I felt that I could feel where their actions came from and where the hesitation for new-ness (and yet willingness for the unknown) started from. And this feeling did not go away. While drawn in initially by their willingness to step into adventure, I was kept along by their want to be open with one another, even if it meant there’s a possibility that it may not work out in their favour.
In short, if you are a fan of romance movies, specifically those that dare to delve into the introspection of the past, this is a movie for you. This film personifies (and makes physical) the act of sharing yourself completely and unabashedly with another person. It’s an invitation to go along on a “Big Beautiful Journey” with someone else, not knowing how or where it will end, just knowing you want to experience it with them.
This movie dares to dream what that could be like.
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is available in theatres on Friday, September 19th, 2025.
