{"id":32063,"date":"2025-09-17T22:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=32063"},"modified":"2025-09-17T22:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T05:56:11","slug":"a-big-bold-beautiful-journey-lacks-spark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=32063","title":{"rendered":"A BIG BOLD BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY Lacks Spark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Running Time: 108\nminutes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This feature\nfrom Sony Pictures opens exclusively at theaters on September 19th<\/sup>,\n2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While I wouldn\u2019t say that as a moviegoer romance films are\nnecessarily my favorite genre, there have been several that have made an\nimpression on me over the past year, including the Icelandic effort Touch<\/em>\nas well as We Live in Time<\/em>. Even Fly Me to the Moon<\/em> had its\nplusses. A Big Bold Beautiful Journey<\/em> is the latest star-studded romance\nto hit movie screens. It\u2019s an impressively mounted production that attempts to\nadd a wrinkle or two to the familiar formula, but ultimately fails to generate\nmuch heat between its leads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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David (Colin Farrell) is a single man with no interest in\nhaving a partner after a bad breakup. This is much to the chagrin of family\nmembers, who pester him to open himself up to others. After he finds himself\nwithout a car on his way to a wedding, he visits an unusual rental agency with\nincredibly quirky employees (Phoebe Waller Bridge and Kevin Kline). They\nprovide him with a 90s-era vehicle and demand he use a special GPS. After\narriving at the event, David meets Sarah (Margot Robbie), a woman just as averse\nto getting into romantic entanglements as he is. But after going their separate\nways, they run into one another on the road. The two end up forced together\nwith that magical GPS, leading them on a road trip through their pasts, where\nthey try to identify the personal issues that have caused so many failed\nrelationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right off the top, the rental agency offers unsolicited\nadvice, stating that while everyone hides themselves and puts on something of a\nperformance in public, these scenarios do reveal truths about oneself. So, what\nfollows are a series of bizarre scenarios in which David and Sarah pass through\nportals and visit some of their most uncomfortable moments. The two initially\nargue that their actions prove why they don\u2019t belong in relationships, but the\nexercise soon forces them to admit a few of their failings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It\u2019s an interesting idea and there are some impressive\nvisuals, like brightly colored, solitary doors in green and brown natural\nlandscapes, in addition to exaggerated versions of past events. These sequences\nlook pretty, but the story embraces the artifice so much that it puts us at a\ndistance. Even early on when they are in an environment that may be real (a\nreasonably bustling fast-food restaurant), there is a lack of background noise\nthat pulls the viewer out of the scene. As the characters are pulled into more\nunusual environments, their interactions feel forced. As good as the performers\nare, their heartfelt conversations and eventual revelations don\u2019t resonate and\nwe never really connect to the characters or care about whether or not they\nwill end up together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perhaps another odd factor is the conceit itself involving\nthe car rental agency. It becomes clear very early what they seem to be doing,\nand one can\u2019t help but wonder, given the attitude of the leads, why anyone\nisn\u2019t asking about their track record or examples of past successes. Perhaps\nthe story is telling us that we aren\u2019t entirely in control of our fate, but one\ncan\u2019t help but feel that the protagonists are being pulled together against\ntheir will. The ultimate message relayed feels, in some respects, contradictory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least, while the main plot has problems, the interactions\nbetween the characters and their parents do resonate. There is a sweet\nhospital-set scene between David and his father (Hamish Linklater), as well as\na scene in which Sarah talks to her mother (Lily Rabe), that actually does make\nan impact. Mind you, all the leads really learn is that their parents have\nalways cared and worried greatly for their well-being. But these conversations\ndo involve some talk about fears and anxieties that are more authentic and land\nin a way that the main story never does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The movie looks pretty, takes viewers on a trip, makes a\ncouple of interesting detours and attempts a different take on the genre.\nUnfortunately, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey<\/em> doesn\u2019t manage to get\nviewers emotionally invested in the success of the relationship between its two\nleads and unlike the best of recent genre efforts, doesn\u2019t create much in the\nway of dramatic sparks.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running Time: 108 minutes This feature from Sony Pictures opens exclusively at theaters on September 19th, 2025. While I wouldn\u2019t say that as a moviegoer romance films are necessarily my favorite genre, there have been several that have made an impression on me over the past year, including the Icelandic effort Touch as well as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":32068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[216,368,369,370,371,4608,4646,6251,7314,11627,13194,16064,17310,18709],"class_list":["post-32063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-216","tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey","tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey-film-review","tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey-movie-review","tag-a-big-bold-beautiful-journey-review","tag-colin-farrell","tag-columbia-pictures","tag-drama","tag-fantasy","tag-kevin-kline","tag-margot-robbie","tag-phoebe-waller-bridge-2","tag-romance","tag-sony-pictures"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}