Kogonada’s "A Big Bold Beautiful Journey"
Movie review by Dennis D. McDonald
Back on my years of volunteering for the Alexandria Film Festival, I sometimes reviewed independent films as input to our annual festival programming. The process was sometimes nerve-racking or even depressing.
On the one hand, many submissions by independent filmmakers were unique, striking, engaging, and even beautiful. Others were reflective of the (usually) young filmmakers’ own depressing or traumatic life experiences, some of which I had experienced myself. It was not unusual to come away from the review process feeling depressed or out of sorts.
While I certainly appreciate the benefits of artistic freedom (especially in these dark days) I had a hard time back then imagining that many people in our target market would willingly pay to see such depressing fare, no matter how beautifully produced. Also, my general takeaway from that experience was that my reviews cannot necessarily be trusted to drive ticket sales!
I mention the above experience as it might explain somewhat why I enjoyed A Big Bold Beautiful Journey so much. For the most part it's structured (quite beautifully) around cleverly incorporated flashbacks to events in their past lives the two main characters have been through.
Now they are thrown together by some quirky power that controls both time and their car’s GPS. The individual vignettes of how these two characters experience and share painful or bittersweet past life events are simultaneously familiar and profound. How Kogonada, Colin Farrell, and Margot Robbie shape their presentation of these events can be charming, funny, sweet, heartrending, surprising, and weird—sometimes at the same time.
The movie is not exactly what I expected, given my only past experience with this director was After Yang, which was one of the best films I watched in 2024.
Still, this film is not for everyone. I see a lot of films and animated productions and my tastes range from slam bang action to popcorn to surreal to sentimental. I expect its critical reception will be mixed and not unlike the mixed reception to Life of Chuck and Here, which I also loved.
This one is difficult to pin down. Let's just say I really enjoyed it and seeing it on a big theater screen was a real treat. My only disappointment: I had hoped to hear more of Joe Hisaishi’s music.
Copyright 2025 by Dennis D. McDonald
