Kogonada (he goes by a single name) directed Colin Farrell in a low-key helping of sci-fi called After Yang (2021), a quietly realized movie about an android who becomes a companion to a father's adopted daughter.
Considering After Yang's off-kilter lilt, it's hardly surprising to see Kogonada put a fairy-tale spin on a big-screen romance starring major Hollywood names, Farrell and Margot Robbie.
From the start, it's clear that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey shouldn't be taken literally. Working from a screenplay by Seth Reiss, Kogonada abstracts the ingredients of romance into a series of scenes meant to depict stages that his characters must go through before love can blossom.
Setting formula aside can be rewarding, but Beautiful Journey doesn't allow Farrell or Robbie to create the credibility and chemistry any romance requires, regardless of form.
Theatrical but lifeless, Beautiful Journey plays like a series of scenes lifted from an acting class. Put another way, the movie feels self-conscious and contrived. Too often, Kogonada's fantasy flatlines.
So how does all this happen? Early on, Farrell's David rents a car from a mysterious agency that insists he take an older vehicle with a GPS added. David drives to a wedding, where he meet's Robbie's Sarah. It turns out that Sarah has rented a car from the same agency.
Soaked in rain, these early scenes feature colorful umbrellas. They may not enhance the story's charm but they sure make it feel soggy.
After the wedding, Sarah's car won't start and the two wind up taking a purportedly magical road trip on which the GPS dictates numerous stops. At several of these stops, a free-standing door (many incongruously placed in rural settings) must be opened. Sarah and David walk uneasily into these pre-determined spaces, revisiting moments in their pasts that have impeded their ability to form meaningful relationships.
In scenes in which David returns to high school, he's pushed into a musical (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) in which he once played a starring role. The moment has some energy, but it also strains to make a point: Rejection in high school can create lingering pain.
The point is clear: Before they can find fulfillment, David and Sarah must overcome internal barriers. Early on, we learn that David has been closing himself off from intimate relationships. Robbie's Sarah makes no bones about her resistance to love. She has a habit of cheating, thus destroying any attempt at sustained intimacy.
None of this rings true, and instead of creating a magical aura, the movie drifts through patches of boredom.
A supporting cast adds little. Kogonada casts Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the agents at a car rental facility that's so obviously lacking in realism, it makes us suspect more weirdness than the movie ever delivers.
Kogonada tries for tears when he inserts when Sarah finally copes with the death of her mother (Lily Rabe), but little about A Big Bold Beautiful Movie clicks.
As for that sound you hear in the row behind you, It could be someone sighing over the movie's poignancy or it might be light snoring.
1 comment:
Emminently skippable. Farrell is too hang-dog to look at for 2 hours.
Post a Comment