A Big Bold Beautiful Journey Reviews: Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie’s Romantic Fantasy Falls Flat

The reviews are in for Kogonada’s third feature film, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and they’re not as beautiful as its title suggests. Starring Oscar nominees Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, the film follows David and Sarah, two lonely individuals brought together by a mysterious car rental company that leads them on a surreal trip through their past relationships via magical doors. The movie aims for a stylized and emotionally rich narrative but asks viewers to accept its eccentricities without much explanation.

Critics, however, aren’t entirely on board. The film currently holds a 56% Rotten Tomatoes score and a 39 rating on Metacritic, a far cry from Kogonada’s more acclaimed works, Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), the latter also starring Farrell. Reviewers have noted the absence of Kogonada’s usual writing and editing finesse, pointing out that he neither wrote nor edited this film.

Clarisse Loughrey of The Independent offered a more generous three-star review, suggesting that the lack of the director’s signature style is due to different collaborators — writer Seth Reiss and editors Susan E Kim and Jonathan Alberts. Still, she credits Kogonada for his direction of actors, saying he extracts emotional depth from Robbie and Farrell despite the material’s limitations.

Less forgiving is Nick Schager of The Daily Beast, who criticizes the film’s sentimentality and unclear distinction between fantasy and reality. He argues that the film’s internal logic collapses under the weight of its premise, leaving the audience disoriented.

USA Today’s Brian Truitt calls the film “bland and emotionally manipulative,” stating that while there are brief moments of visual flair, the story becomes less interesting the more it leans into formulaic romance. He bluntly suggests that viewers who aren’t Farrell or Robbie completists should skip this lackluster cinematic road trip altogether.

Perhaps the harshest criticism comes from Ryan Lattanzio of Indiewire, who praises Kogonada’s earlier films but finds this one to be a major misstep. He describes the film as featuring “incoherent editing” and “embarrassingly earnest writing,” ultimately labeling it “a big, bold, beautiful bore.” According to Lattanzio, the film lacks the emotional precision of Kogonada’s previous work and suffers from a muddled artistic vision.

Still, there are a few bright spots. Hoai-Tran Bui of Inverse offers a more optimistic take, calling the movie a “unicorn of a film” — flawed but full of imagination and romantic sincerity. Despite acknowledging “wooden dialogue” and “sketched out personalities,” Bui praises the movie’s visual beauty and whimsical charm, claiming it stands out in today’s cinematic landscape.

In the end, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey may not live up to the promise of its title, but its ambitious storytelling, star power, and distinctive aesthetics make it a curiosity for viewers willing to embrace its flaws.