There is a thin line between true emotion and sentimentality; one shows you how to feel, the other tells you how to feel. In film a deft hand needs to be employed to avoid banal musings in service of specificity. That is not the case with A Big, Bold Beautiful Journey, a film that could’ve been promising if it didn’t stumble on every cliche.
A Big, Bold Beautiful Journey
The fault of this sincerely must lie with screenwriter Seth Reiss, whose only credits include co-writing 2022 The Menu (another film I have issues with) and a handful of television shows. It would seem that this was part of the 2020 Black List, a ranking the best under-produced scripts in Hollywood. And from the premise, it would seem right. Two lonely souls; city dwellers, leave for a wedding they are both invited to. Both rent cars from the same company, equipped with an interactive GPS ready to send them on that titular journey. Along the way, they find magical doors that transport them to certain moments in their lives that were pivotal to how they got to where they are. Sounds like an interesting premise, right? Wrong, dead wrong. I knew were in trouble when the phrase “fast-food cheeseburger” was said in one scene for the fifth time followed by the shot of a Burger King.
Director Kogonada has shown himself capable of conveying honest romance; check out his film Columbus. But here he allows his filmic influences to take center stage in place of his own directorial voice, referencing Umbrellas of Cherbourg to Pleasantville. His attempts at honest sentiment are cheap at best and sledgehammer to the temple at worst. Who even are these are these characters, David and Sarah? You can’t say they’re complete archetypes like “manic pixie dream girl” and “sad, tragic hero.” In the end they are so amorphous as to embody both, feeling hollow. Avoid at all costs.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, The History of Sound weaves its spell on the audience like a bygone wistful melody. Brought to life by writer Ben Shattuck adapting his own short story, two music scholars spend a season in Maine hunting down and recording past-down songs before they are lost to time. While camping and hiking from town and village, their bond grows more romantic from their college days onward. Some have likened the film to Brokeback Mountain, however that is a crude comparison.
Oliver Humanus’s lyrical approach to storytelling lends itself to a tale steeped in the ephemeral nature of Appalachian folk music; like memory, as transitory as the wind Lionel listens to.
The film belongs to Paul Mescal, whose his warm eyes and exacting expressions betray his thoughts and feelings throughout. However, Josh O’Connor’s devilish smile and understated vocal delivery haunt this movie. Much like his character David, he is a specter to us as he is to Lionel once he leaves.
Praise must be given to cinematographer Alexander Dynan for how he made the outdoor scenes look pastoral even at their plainest. He and production designer Deborah Jensen create lived-in worlds that breathe, as if you could walk through the screen and be there. The camera lingers on people in these spaces for you to sit with them, as if asked to enter their shoes and walk around a bit.
It’s sad there is no soundtrack to buy or stream, as both the main cast and the supporting actors give wonderful performances in their singing, complimentary to the time period and style of the music. Mescal’s rendition of “Silver Dagger” that bookend the film is devastating, especially when you get to the time-jump epilogue with an older Lionel played by Chris Cooper who commands even for his brief fifteen minutes on screen. Between this and Sinners earlier in the year, I see a revival of roots music coming the way it did in the early 2000s with O’ Brother, Where Art Thou. A film that deserves your patience and will award you tenfold, you owe it to yourself to seek it out in all its beauty.
