At the start of “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,”  David (Colin Farrell) is having a bad day. He’s heading off to a wedding, but finds his car has been booted. He’s talking to his father on his cellphone and we hear his father advising him to be open because life can be better.

Luckily there’s a flyer advertising car rentals. In the pouring rain, he walks through a deserted alley into a large empty, but clean industrial setting where there are two people seated at a long uncluttered table waiting for him.

This peculiar car rental agency already has his headshot and David insists he isn’t an actor. Yet he does get a spotlight and we learn that “sometimes we have to perform to get to the truth.”  The car rental agency only has Saturns, an American auto company (a subsidiary of General Motors) that went defunct on 31 October 2010.

Although initially David resists getting the GPS because he has his phone, he does and he is on his way. He drives over 200 miles to attend a wedding that is outdoors and the guests shelter under navy blue, soft yellow and transparent umbrellas. Afterward inside a cozy building standing at a table, David is alone but briefly meets Sarah (Margot Robbie). Sarah asks David to dance, but he doesn’t dance. She’ll also ask him to marry her, but David refrains. That evening, David retires alone while Sarah spends the night with some guy she met on the dance floor.

On his way home, David begins his big, bold and beautiful journey and that will include Sarah and the gentle insistent guidance of the in-car GPS system.  Together and apart, David and Sarah will revisit parts of their past that shaped them into the lonely people they are today. Seth Reiss’ script  whimsically veers into surrealist territory. The two literally open doors and find themselves in different places at different times where they can explore each other’s past. This romantic comedy seems almost like a play that benefits greatly from a movie’s ability to broaden the scenery and actually go to a variety of places.

While director Kogonada sets a good pace, Kogonada and the director of photography Benjamin Loeb don’t always set the scene well. There are lighting distractions in backgrounds and the actors’ faces are often obscured by shadow where fill lights might have better served. The chemistry between Farrell and Robbie isn’t there when they first meet, but improves as they become more open. The ending is hopeful.

“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” encourages us to take little adventures and be open to where life leads us. Sometimes one needs to look back to go forward, but always we must be willing to open new doors to the new opportunities around us. The film is schedule for a theatrical release by Sony Pictures in the US and Canada on 19 September 2025.