“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” - The magic of time and place.

I like weird. Weird music, weird books, and definitely weird movies. The Lobster, The Fountain, Labyrinth. The weirder, the better. Well, maybe not The Shape of Water weird. I have a line - fuzzy as it may be - and that movie crossed it. On the other hand, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey landed right in my sweet spot.

Life is all about doors. The doors you open and walk through and those you don’t. Journey asks its two main characters to open and walk through a bunch of doors and for us, the audience, to follow them. And the doors are so weird.

David (Colin Farrell) walks through a door into a very large room containing two rental cars. Two people sitting behind a desk urge David to come all the way in. The woman (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) peppers him with questions while the man (Kevin Kline) casually observes and agrees with her. In the end, she convinces David to rent the GPS to go with the 1994 Saturn he will be borrowing.

David makes his way to a friend’s wedding where he meets Sarah (Margot Robbie). The two of them have a very weird conversation, the wedding ends, and they separately leave the wedding. Shortly into the drive home, the sultry GPS voice asks David if he would like to go on a big, bold, beautiful journey. At first, David is confused that a GPS is having a conversation with him. But his life is quite dull, especially at that moment, so he answers yes. The GPS directs him to a fast-food rest-stop and tells him to order a cheeseburger. Question, dear reader - what would your answer to the GPS have been?

Sitting in a booth and eating his food, he spots Sarah two booths away. Weird. Sarah joins David, they chat for a while, then they walk to their respective, identical 1994 Saturns. More weird. When Sarah’s car won’t start, GPS tells David to offer Sarah a ride. He does. This is not weird, just polite. After some time and distance have passed, they reach a new destination. They walk into the woods and find a bright red door standing alone. With caution, they approach the door and David decides to walk through. At this moment, we are seeing the door from the side and we do not see David pass through the frame. Sarah joins him and the two find themselves in a lighthouse David once visited. Excellent and so very weird.

The rest of the film unfolds this way, Sarah and David walking through random doors into different moments of each other’s lives. And they aren’t just watching these moments play out and reminiscing about them. These are interactive moments where David and Sarah are their younger selves (or their parents) and can make different decisions. Where they can say things they wanted to say or not say things they did say.

But it’s not a Mr. Destiny thing where their present is altered if they make different decisions. These are all introspective interactions. They get to see how that moment plays out if they choose a different action, but when they walk back out the door, their lives are the same. These are learning moments for them and not just about themselves.

Don’t forget, this is also a romantic story. That initial wedding conversation is David and Sarah’s meet-cute. The door adventures are their dates. They even go through the cliched event that separates the two, though in their case it’s not an inane misunderstanding. All of this is clever character building while also developing their relationship with each other. And we even get to see them sing a little bit.

 

We watch a relationship blossom in real-time over a couple of days, while witnessing the kind of introspection, revelation, and vulnerability that comes over the course of a long-term partnership. A life partner sees you at your worst, relives your stories of pivotal formative moments, and holds your hand as you navigate through those latent emotions. This movie illustrates a wonderful allegory of how a lifelong partnership intertwines both past and future growth, and how the accidental elements of time and place can intersect to create magic.

In addition to being a big fan of weird, I’m also a big fan of Farrell and Robbie. Both have plenty of experience with weird, as anyone who has seen The Lobster or Birds of Prey can attest to. And both of them deliver very satisfying and convincing performances. Even if you aren’t a fan of the weirdness, you’ll be a fan of David and Sarah by the time they return their Saturns.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back and stay weird.

“The Long Walk” - Walk it off.

By sheer coincidence, I attended a screening of The Long Walk just two days after walking around Disney World for three days. If you have never been to Disney World, I can assure you that however much you think people walk there, you are vastly underestimating. As luck would have it, I know approximately how far I walked because both my wife and our friend wore fitness watches counting our steps.

I figured the final tally would be somewhere around ten miles over those three days, fifteen miles tops. I wasn’t even close. Turns out it was a literal marathon, somewhere between twenty-six and thirty miles (more than 59,000 steps). Now, imagine doing more than ten times that, but with no breaks. That’s what the contestants do in The Long Walk.

My recent experience is only a fraction of The Long Walk, but it’s a useful starting point. After my first day of walking roughly twelve miles, my legs were dead tired, my calves were sore, my back was stiff and achy, I was dehydrated, and I was developing blisters on both of my little toes. I did what I could the next two days to avoid worse blisters and pulled muscles. On the flip side, all that walking was constantly interrupted by standing in line for rides, riding those rides, standing in line for food like Mickey pretzels, and sitting down to eat those pretzels. Don’t worry - I’m not looking for pity. I know where I was.

In other words, I have an inkling of what the The Long Walk might feel like. However, unlike the characters in The Long Walk, I didn’t have to maintain a three-mile-per-hour walking pace. I didn’t get warnings for slowing down (they get a maximum of three but can erase a warning for every hour they go without an additional warning). I didn’t have to try to sleep while walking. Or poop while walking. And I certainly didn’t have to cope with anyone in my group being gunned down because they ran out of warnings and slowed down again. Even in Florida.

On the positive side, like the characters in The Long Walk, I shared the experience with friends (and family). Being able to talk to people is a great distraction from the monotony of walking miles upon miles. In the film, there are several characters that get plenty of screentime, the two most prominent being Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and Peter McVries (David Jonsson). The two form a bond just before the walk begins, eventually leaning on each other through the walk like brothers, if not lovers. Complimenting these two are Arthur Baker (Tut Nyuot) and Hank Olson (Ben Wang), forming a friend group that easily makes the viewer forget the walking for several lengths of time.

It's not all high-fives and bro-hugs, though. Stebbins (Garrett Wareing) and Gary Barkovitch (Charlie Plummer) are adversaries to Ray and Pete’s quartet, though I wouldn’t go so far as to call them villains. Stebbins is all but a machine and kind of a dick and Barkovitch is a loose cannon. Think of them as that squabbling family yelling at one screaming child while shoving a stroller haphazardly in the middle of the Epcot walkway. You silently curse at them, desperately willing them to park the stroller, shove a churro in the kid’s mouth, and get out of the way. Trigger-happy soldiers pacing us doesn’t seem like the worst idea at that point. Again, Florida.

When my Disney trip was over, I was quite satisfied, despite my blistered toes. I did not feel the same way when The Long Walk cut to credits. A little of that is my fault. I read the original Stephen King story (same title) thirty years ago and I’ve been waiting that long for an adaptation. Along the way, I think my memories of the story drifted a bit, along with my expectations for a film version. Don’t get me wrong, the film is decent. Good, even, if you really like character- and dialogue-driven stories where the tiny bit of action is mostly on the sidelines. Think Stand By Me, but without the leeches.

But most of my very mild disappointment is the movie hasn’t been updated for our times. As one person pointed out in a post-movie discussion panel, the story can be interpreted as an allegory of the Vietnam War. A platoon of conscripted young men on an endless walk, constantly in danger of being shot, and doing so for a very fuzzy reason. I understand historical dramas, but why make an exceptionally faithful adaptation of an allegory of something that happened fifty years ago whose commentary won’t even be recognized by anyone under the age of sixty?

I was also mildly disappointed that the film didn’t give us anyone to really root against. Stebbins and Barkovitch are developed such that they still inspire plenty of sympathy. The Major (Mark Hamill) responsible for conducting the Long Walk is a classic bully, but he’s really more of an idea of a bully; a voice from off-camera that inspires little more than an eyeroll as he barks military cliches at the walkers. And the crowds of people who line the streets in the book, hoping to glimpse death, are removed from the film altogether. So, when the final walker is eliminated, there isn’t much resolution because they didn’t really overcome anything. It’s just...done.

In other words, it’s one of those times when a film probably needed to wander a bit more from its source material. I don’t mean anything crazy like the 1987 The Running Man adaptation. But it could have leaned into a character or two hallucinating from sleep deprivation (not unlike me after 3 days at Disney), in addition to a little more villainization. Hamill wouldn’t have to go full Darth Vader, but a little more Jafar would have been nice. A bit more of the verbal psychological warfare to emphasize which of them really only cares about the prize awarded to the last man standing. And bringing the spectators back to emphasize how far the world around them had fallen. This would have given the end of the film much more weight and satisfied the audience. Even the ones who were just at the happiest place on Earth.

Rating: Ask for five dollars back or a Mickey pretzel.

“The Roses” - They love me, they love me not, but in British.

I won’t bury the lede - yes, The Roses is a remake of the 1989 film War of the Roses. No, it’s not a shot for shot remake, but a retelling of the original story. The Roses is a good example of why remakes actually do have a place in film, despite what many people think. Remakes give filmmakers a chance to tell a story from a different perspective or in a different way. That’s not to say all remakes take that opportunity. Looking at you, Disney.

The obvious question you want to know is if The Roses is better or worse than War of the Roses. Well...that really depends on how you feel about watching two people who used to love each other sabotage each other’s lives to get custody of their house. If you were cringing your way through the more than an hour’s worth in War of the Roses and never watched it again, you’ll enjoy The Roses more. If you don’t care about the couple’s relationship and just want to see carnage, you should stop reading now and go watch John Wick. Because The Roses spends maybe ten minutes on the petty vengeance and does so almost apologetically.

Unlike War of the Roses, The Roses is primarily interested in the couple themselves and the evolution of their relationship. Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) is an architect with strong, sarcastic opinions about other architects’ work. Ivy (Olivia Colman) is a chef with a killer palette and acerbic wit. They have their meet-cute and the film spends some time showing us how much they truly love each other over the next decade. Oh, and they’re British instead of American, which allows both actors to really strut their A+ British stuff.

Living the seemingly idyllic life in America - married with two kids, a house near the coast, and a friend group - Ivy is raising their children and running a low-key crab restaurant while Theo is the breadwinner about to complete his masterpiece (a nautical museum). When a storm upends their lives, roles are reversed. Theo finds himself out of work and raising the kids while Ivy’s restaurant business explodes in popularity and success. Had this film been trying to follow in the 1989 version’s footsteps, the Roses’ relationship would have quickly deteriorated into vitriol and hate...monster trucks and urine.

Instead, it’s a slow burn downhill as the film depicts a much more realistic version of two people falling out of love. Broken promises, missed dates, depression, jealousy, apologies that don’t quite make up for damage caused, fights over little and big things, therapy, and a whale. Ok, maybe the whale isn’t realistic, but...actually, never mind about the whale. It’ll make sense when you see it.

There’s even a last-ditch attempt to save their marriage, this time in the form of Theo designing their dream house. Yeah, the film did decide to keep that aspect of War of the Roses, including the part where they fight over who gets the house in the divorce. But that fighting is just the climax of the film instead of the entire second half. Like I said, the film’s heart isn’t really in this bit of fighting, though it doesn’t shy away from getting creative about it.

I’m glad director Jay Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara went in that direction. I’m not a fan of watching people behave horribly and spitefully to each other, especially not for extended periods of time. It’s tolerable here because the film earned it, but it’s still really hard to watch. And that’s how I know this was a good film. I wasn’t rooting for either of them to defeat the other because they both were responsible for letting their relationship fall apart. It made me sad to watch them terrorize each other because I know how much they were hurting. And that is definitely not how I felt watching War of the Roses.

While the storytelling was solid and the character development was really good, the performances from Cumberbatch and Colman were fantastic. As much as I enjoy them in any role, the best decision by the filmmakers was to let the two of them go full Union Jack. Not only is the dry wit perfect for the story - and, wow, do they both deliver on that wit, Colman even says at one point that the British are known for repressing their feelings and staying too long in dying relationships. They were so good that I might not have minded a few extra minutes of spite. Especially with their accent.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, dollars or pounds.