I would normally advise filmmakers to steer away from ironic movie titles unless their movies were explicitly comedies, but I’m really not sure if the title of Korean-American director Kogonada’s romantic fantasy is supposed to be ironic. Certainly there are comic elements at play, mainly in the whole premise of a would-be couple being Shanghaied by their respective rental cars’ GPS into taking trips to the past to uncover the Freudian sources of their difficulties in committing to long-lasting relationships. If the title is not meant to be ironic, then it will likely repel a certain group of moviegoers who actually might appreciate its storytelling craft and witty dialogue, but, in the end, it peddles exactly the kind of New Age didacticism that you fear it would.

Kogonada gets more help than he probably deserves from his high-wattage leads. Colin Farrell is David, a resident of an unidentified big East Coast city, probably New York, who is about to drive to a wedding when he discovers his car has been wheel-locked due to a parking violation. A helpful flyer on a wall facing his car advertises a mysterious car rental agency located in a cavernous, abandoned garage and manned by two very ironic employees, one of whom is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge sporting a weird German accent. Despite David’s initial protestations, these two insist he take the GPS option, whose AI voice not only soothingly gets him to the church on time, so to speak, but gives him unsolicited advice for living. It also seems to control the weather. At the wedding, he is introduced to Sarah (Margot Robbie), a meeting that is obviously supposed to mean something, but neither seems sufficiently interested in the other to seek an extension of their acquaintanceship, so they part following the reception only to be reunited by their nosey GPS trackers—yes, Sarah rented her care from the same company. The GPS then leads them into weird doorways in remote, gorgeously lit locations that act as portals to episodes in their past that had some seminal effect on molding their personalities, which the movie tells us in no uncertain terms are damaged by trauma and heartbreak—in David’s case an almost fatal health condition and the quashing of his professional dreams, and in Sarah’s the death of her mother. Though none of these episodes really clarify the deficiencies they’re meant to clarify, isolated from the overall movie they provide more in the way of entertainment, especially Farrell’s game and very accomplished stab at the lead in How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying, which he once played in a high school production. 

It’s difficult to know how to read these episodes because they don’t provide any meaningful reflections, only building blocks to a kind of amorphous plot. The point seems to be that our two would-be lovers missed the real significance of these experiences the first time and are now being given the chance to appreciate them for what they were, but the situations themselves are so hackneyed as edification that they don’t make much of an impression. Consequently, there’s no buildup of dramatic tension that would make the inevitable connection between David and Sarah satisfying. It’s all inertia, which is sort of what you would expect from a love affair brought about by your car’s GPS system; meaning, it should have been funnier.

Opens Dec. 19 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024). 

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey home page in Japanese