Romantic comedies and love films once were among the most popular genres in the cinema – but these times are long gone. In recent years, superhero films, sequels and reboots in Hollywood have set the tone. But maybe that is changing. In 2024, for example, “where the lie falls” with Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney was a big cash success, but an even more interesting case study gives Celine Songs “What is Love Value – Materialists”: a self -reflective romance that deliberately plays with the structures of the genre, which is intenrated and often understood the knowledge of the audience in the film.
“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey”, the new film by the former film critic Kogonada, also sees itself as a modern variation of a classic genre. The figures in the center get to know each other right at the beginning and come together – of course – together. In between, however, they live through a more than unusual journey, both of which confronted with their respective past and above all the psychological obstacles on the way to a relationship.
In the middle of the forest, David (Colin Farrell) and Sarah (Margot Robbie) come across a mysterious door – no idea that this is the starting shot for a trip through the past …
Since his car is closed with a parking claw, David (Colin Farrell) is looking for a way out – and sees a note with the offer of a car rental. Somewhat strange, the way to the rented car looks like a film casting – and also the fact that only cars from the 1990s are available. But David has no choice. And so he still finds the way to a wedding at which he meets Sarah (Margot Robbie).
At first glance, it is not love, rather attraction. But nothing happens at first, because both David and Sarah have great skepticism when it comes to serious relationships. Both know about their own quirks, but also do not want to hurt their counterpart. The next day, however, coincidence (or the fate?) Bring them together again in a snack – and promptly Sarah's car remains, whereupon the two are on their way together and are piloted into a forest by astonishingly clairvoyant GPS. There they come across a mysterious door – just a door with frame, no longer. What you don't know yet: This door leads into the past, towards a place that means David a lot. Afterwards there are several other doors – and the two start a trip to your own psyche, on which you gradually become active participants from passive observers …
A deeply personal commissioning work
Park Joong Eun is called the American South Korean origin, who produced film -critical web videos as a Kogonada, which made him known and soon made the site change: “Columbus” was called Konogada's feature film debut as an author and director, four years later followed “After Yang” – both stylistically distinctive, narrative unconventional films that revolved around relationships and memories. In this respect, you do not have to be surprised that Kogonada has filmed a foreign script with “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” for the first time. A few years ago, Seth Reiss' script found himself on the so -called blacklist, an annual list of the best uncomfortable screenplays that circulate in Hollywood. A commissioned work – but one that suits Kogonada's sensitivity exactly on his topics, his often slightly mannered style, but not least his knowledge of film history.
Even the poster with Robbie and Farrell under colorful umbrellas is reminiscent of “The Cherbourg umbrellas”. References to tragic road movies such as “La Strada” and other classics create a meta level that “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” classifies in a long tradition of romantic stories. As naive and carefree as some former film figures plunged into the adventure of a relationship, it is no longer possible here. David and Sarah, who want, seem skeptical and inhibited, but cannot – at least at the beginning. Her trips in the past sometimes seem like therapy sessions that confront the couple with drastic events and traumatic moments that they have made what they are.
Of course, David and Sarah are intended for each other – all they have to do is recognize it!
David, for example, had stood his love after a musical performance in the high school of a classmate and had been brusiously rejected. Sarah, on the other hand, was in bed with her professor at the university instead of standing in the hospital instead of her dying mother. Now the magical concept of the film offers you the opportunity to go through these experiences again – not to do everything differently, but to recognize that individual moments should not determine a whole being.
Kogonada immerses this trip into stylized, sometimes a bit too colorful pictures and also underlines them with sweet indie pop. Some moments sometimes move hard on the border to kitsch. But all of this is ultimately in the service of a romance, in which the only ones who do not know from the start where the trip leads are the designated lovers. Kogonada plays clever with the patterns of the genre, but does not forget to focus on its naturally more than attractive leading actors and to give them the necessary space.
Conclusion: “A Big Bold Bold Beautiful Journey” by Kogonada, in which Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell embark on a long, narrative ambitious journey through his own past – to recognize what the viewer knows from the first moment: that they are intended for each other.