A weekend isn’t long enough to change your life completely, but it might be enough to recognize the thresholds you need to cross to make that change. And if you’re lucky, it could be the time you discover the person you’d be willing to cross them with. This, in part, sums up the premise of A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, an unclassifiable film that’s both a romantic drama and a metaphysical road trip, where emotions carry more weight than ideas. 

This is the third feature from director Kogonada, the Seoul-born, American-raised filmmaker long known for his celebrated video essays on cinema. With earlier films like Columbus and After Yang, he established himself as a visionary with a distinct touch. This time, he takes the added risk of pursuing commercial viability with a mid-budget studio film featuring two stars. This also opens him up to new collaborations; he works from an original script by Seth Reiss rather than his own and leaves the editing to others. 

Despite these changes, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey still feels like a Kogonada film—sensitive and vulnerable in its emotions, intimate and precise in its execution, though more willing than before to indulge in spectacle. The story focuses on a will-they-won’t-they romance between strangers David (Colin Farrell) and Sara (Margot Robbie). They first cross paths at a mutual friend’s wedding. Their initial exchanges are awkward, a mix of spontaneous frankness and calculated flirtation between two people who recognize each other’s attraction. Their casual chat escalates into a mock marriage proposal from Sara, one David hesitates to answer—a chance for something more seems to have slipped away. 

Both had traveled long distances by car, using the same rental service. The day after the wedding, as David drives home, his car’s AI voice system (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) asks if he’s ready to embark on a “big bold beautiful journey.” His near-instant willingness seems perfectly in character, as David appears to be lonely, quietly disappointed by solitude and eager for something new. Yet the first stop of this odyssey is a mundanely lunch at Burger King. Remarkably, Sara happens to be there too, and they decide to eat together. Later, when they try to return to their cars, Sara’s won’t work. It quickly becomes clear they’ve both signed up for the same experience, which requires them to travel together. 

The journey unfolds as a long road trip punctuated by random stops. Each stop features a door standing alone in open fields. The first portals lead to places deeply personal to them—a lighthouse David once frequented and a museum Sara cherishes. Soon, each entryway takes them to significant moments from their pasts. Through these experiences, David grows increasingly open with Sara, though she resists, insisting she will only hurt him and confessing she has always cheated on her partners. The question remains: Can this journey offer a solution to their similar longings? 

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey wears its heart on its sleeve, animated by a romantic notion that asks audiences to accept it as it is. Robbie and Farrell have great on-screen chemistry, though it’s difficult to see them entirely stripped of irony. Even in Barbie, Robbie’s performance framed innocence through a lens of snarky comedy. The cinematography by Benjamin Loeb, the score by Joe Hisaishi, and Icelandic singer Laufey’s vocal contributions lend artistic legitimacy to a package that is accessible and sentimental. 

Kogonada has undoubtedly mastered two of the three “Bs” here: a film that is bigger than anything he’s done before and enveloping in its beauty. What’s missing is boldness. At times it feels like a sanitized version of a Charlie Kaufman project. Some scenes hint at a movie that could have been looser and more delirious—like a musical number that bursts beyond the stage or a dinner-date argument where Sara and David are forced to participate in the breakups that have scarred others. 

Still, if you accept the rules as they are laid out, you’ll find that there is with no room for cynicism. For audiences craving an all-consuming, honest romance with all its inherent magic, here’s a gentle film fueled by the conviction that we all deserve some of that grace.