'A Big Bold Beautiful Journey' Review: A Big Bold Beautiful and Flawed Star-powered Fantasy-Romance
- Dan Bremner
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
By Dan Bremner - September 23, 2025
Mid-budget original films like this are becoming an endangered species. In an age dominated by blockbusters, sequels, reboots, and streaming fodder, something that isn’t tied to an existing IP but still lands in cinemas almost feels like a miracle. That’s partly why A Big Bold Beautiful Journey had my attention from the moment its lush, sappy trailers started playing. With Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell in the leads, and direction from Kogonada, a filmmaker I knew only by reputation through Columbus and After Yang, it seemed like the kind of star-driven romantic fantasy that doesn’t come around much anymore. The end result, though, was underwhelming: a film that’s undeniably gorgeous and pleasant enough to sit through, but ultimately messy, emotionally hollow, and far less profound than it thinks it is.
What is A Big Bold Beautiful Journey about?
At the center of the film are Sarah (Robbie) and David (Farrell), two strangers whose lives cross through a surreal twist that allows them to revisit moments from their respective pasts. The conceit is an appealing one: reliving formative moments in order to gain perspective, or even shift how they see themselves in the present. On paper, it’s a setup rife with potential for introspection, nostalgia, regret, and second chances. In execution, it wobbles between whimsical fantasy and heavy-handed melodrama, never quite settling on a consistent tone. The film wants to be profound, but it often ends up saying less than it pretends to.
The biggest asset here, and the reason the film remains watchable even when its ideas start to unravel, is the cast. Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell are both immensely charismatic screen presences, and together they share a natural chemistry that makes the film’s central dynamic easy to invest in. Robbie in particular radiates warmth and charm, balancing Sarah’s vulnerability with a spark of wit that gives the character some much-needed likeability despite her regrets. Farrell, meanwhile, leans into his melancholic side, delivering repetitive regret monologues that threaten to become tedious, but an incredible dance and music number involving jazz hands is a spectacular highlight. Even when the script lets them down, the two leads pull you back in.
Around them, however, the supporting cast is frustratingly underutilized. Phoebe Waller-Bridge pops up in what seems like it could have been a meaty role as a sort of quirky mentor figure, but her appearances are limited to brief comedic asides that quickly grate more than they delight. Billy Magnussen, meanwhile, barely registers, relegated to a background character with little impact. For a film that seems to promise a sweeping ensemble, it really does come down almost entirely to Robbie and Farrell carrying the emotional and narrative weight.
Visual Style: Bold, Beautiful, but Sometimes Hollow
Where things exceed greatly, however, is in its big bold beautiful style. Kogonada brings his meticulous craftsmanship to the table, blending vibrant, almost dreamlike fantasy sequences with quieter, intimate character moments. The cinematography is layered with detail and rich colour, creating immersive parallel worlds that feel lived-in even when they’re only glimpsed briefly. A jump to a 1970s-inspired alternate reality, is beautifully staged and aesthetically striking, but narratively, it rarely lands. It’s abrupt, underexplained, and leaves you wondering whether it adds anything beyond an excuse for some flashy retro stylization.
This points to the film’s biggest problem: the storytelling is overambitious, sometimes to the point of incoherence. The rules of its world are vague at best, and inconsistent at worst. How exactly do Sarah and David access these past moments? What determines which memories they revisit, and how much influence they can exert over them? The film never really bothers to explain, and while some may argue that ambiguity is part of the charm, for me it created more frustration than wonder. Instead of immersing you in its fantasy, it constantly leaves you questioning the logistics, which undercuts the emotional beats it’s aiming for which end up coming off as mawkish at points.
Even when the pieces do come together, the emotional impact is disappointingly thin. The film gestures at weighty themes of regret, loss, self-discovery, the inevitability of change, but rarely commits to exploring them in depth. By the final act, you can feel the film straining to tug on your heartstrings, but the emotional hollowness of the preceding events means the payoff doesn’t land. It’s not that the story is devoid of meaning, but rather that it skims the surface of profundity without ever diving in. A film about reliving one’s past should leave you gutted, haunted, or inspired, this one leaves you mildly moved at best.
Final Verdict: A Hollow Yet Refreshing Theatrical Spectacle
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey isn’t without merit. It’s beautifully shot, held together by two leads who are both operating at a high level, and sprinkled with moments of whimsy that, in isolation, are charming enough. As a theatrical mid-budget fantasy romance, it’s refreshing simply to see something like this released theatrically in 2025. But “refreshing” doesn’t automatically mean “great.” It’s ultimately a hollow spectacle: nice to look at, easy to watch, but not something that will last in your memory.
'A Big Bold Beautiful Journey' is out now in cinemas.
Want more film reviews? Check out more content on our website Film Focus Online!
