A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) – Review and Summary
“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is a reminder not to get stuck in your memories and let one moment, or even a series of moments, cause you to become stagnant.
Spoiler Alert: This summary and review contains spoilers.
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“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” Film Details
- Runtime: 1 Hour(s) and 49 Minutes
- Released On: In Theaters
- Public Release Date: September 19, 2025
- Director(s): Kogonada
- Writer(s): Seth Reiss
- Genre(s): Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Romance
- Rating: Rated R
- Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
- Official Site Link
Movie Summary
David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie) meet at a mutual friend’s wedding. While there is some flirting, it seems David’s unwillingness to dance means another man will be taking Sarah to the hotel, having fun, and maybe never seeing her again. However, be it fate or a very strange Car Rental Agency, the two meet again at a Burger King, Sarah’s car breaks down, and a life-changing GPS (Jodie Turner-Smith) takes them both to several doors representing pivotal moments in their life.
Some doors lead to childhood memories of rejection or loss, and other doors lead to long-held memories that cause mixed emotions, like a museum or lighthouse, as well as a coffee shop where both had, or avoided, the toughest conversation of their adult lives. Together they sort through their individual baggage that has kept them from truly moving on, or moving forward in life, and decide if they wish to grow, maybe be with one another, or are so settled and comfortable where they are with their sense of fear, they’d rather remain stagnant.
Review and Commentary
Highlight(s)
It Can Stir Emotions Regarding Where You Might Be Stuck In Life [82/100]
Sarah and David’s journey generally isn’t a highlight reel of the best times of their life. It’s about David’s struggles with his dad (Hamish Linklater), the girls or women he thought he loved, and wondering if he can not only enjoy the chase, but also when things are settled and he has the girl. Then with Sarah, between not having a dad, her relationship with men lacking stability, and her regrets regarding her mom (Lily Rabe), while both are years, maybe decades from pivotal moments, you see them stuck there.
Often, people talk about the crossroads and making a choice. But with these two, it could be submitted that they didn’t choose a road but created some semblance of a life for themselves, built a home where the crossroad is now a boundary, and they are only willing to go back and laterally, but never forward. While watching this, it is easy to find yourself reflecting on where you might be stuck and how or where that is affecting you.
Are you chronically single? Well, what action or indecision caused that for you? Stuck at work, where is the fear of moving on, asking for more, or regaining your creativity lost? I won’t pretend that Sarah and David’s lives are profound and lead to moments you’ll stand and say, “THAT’S ME,” but enough is delivered in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey to get you thinking about how you move, and where you draw the line.
There Is Enough Chemistry There To Believe In Sarah and David As A Couple [80/100]
I would submit that when it comes to Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie, it is more their individual charm than chemistry that drives you to believe Sarah and David as a couple. The flirtation doesn’t feel like it is specific to that other person, and it could literally be anyone. There are moments when they look at each other, and there are little sparks, but a lot of the time, it is easy to imagine this being filmed like a superhero movie where they weren’t in the same room and were acting with a tennis ball, but still somehow being able to make it work.
The Relationship With Parents [84/100]
While A Big Bold Beautiful Journey could be painted as a love story, I would submit the love between parent(s) and child was a better focus and will elicit more emotion out of viewers than whether Sarah and David bond or make it in the end. Sarah’s relationship with her mom is sweet since she was a single mother, the stereotypical sacrificial kind, and you can see how that bond meant something to Sarah.
I would even say it set the type of standard that Sarah feared being able to give to another person, and maybe fearful she either wouldn’t receive or maybe receive, and that person could snatch that away. The film does allow room for the possibility of complexity. Case in point, David’s parents are given more time and attention than Sarah’s, and his father is given notable screentime.
It is in watching David get to know his father beyond the awkward moments of him lingering about, as unsure of what to say as any first-time parent, that you see an enviable love. Never mind scenes in which David learns of the secrets his parents hold, and even gets to be in his father’s shoes, perhaps doing what he wished his father would have, while learning how hard it is to have the perfect response to a child in need of guidance.
Truly, the relationship with the parents sometimes eclipses and offers something far more butterfly-inducing than the leads’ relationship at times.
On The Fence
It Should Have Been A Mini-Series [77/100]
With the way A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is set up, especially with the whole “Door To Your Past” bit, it’s not hard to imagine this would have been better as a mini-series to really dive into the situations and characters that forever changed Sarah and David. When it comes to the first girl to reject David’s love, it would have been nice to have seen her built up over an episode, as well as David going from a kid who enjoys being in musicals to refusing to dance – maybe because of what happened.
Then with Sarah, while it develops her relationship with her mom well, it doesn’t necessarily do the same to further your understanding of her being a hot mess in relationships. It, as David even points out, sounds and feels like something which is built to be alluring, the unattainable girl, yet you don’t really get to see that.
You learn what she did to one guy who would have married her, but you don’t get the same sense of, this is why they are the way they are, as you do with David. Which, even at the time length the film is, makes it feel like it needed more room to develop its characters to the fullest.
Overall
Our Rating (80/100): Positive (Worth Seeing)
A Big Bold Beautiful Journey works best when exploring Sarah and David’s emotional baggage and their relationships with their parents. For in reflecting on how people get stuck in life, it creates a resonating narrative that can have a lingering effect on viewers.
However, while Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie may have the star power and charm to sell Sarah and David as a couple, their chemistry isn’t often convincing, making the parent-child relationships frequently outshine the romance. Add in a narrative that feels rushed at times and better suited for a mini-series, and you get a film that is thoughtful, sometimes stirring, but not as sweeping or fulfilling as its title suggests.
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