A WORLD APART

"A Big Bold Beautiful Journey."

- BY RICHARD BRODY

If movies were given scores as figure skaters are, fantasy would start with a high rating for technical difficulty. The landings of the genre are hard to stick, because fantasy, by definition, isn’t rooted in experience. No one has lived on a distant planet, in the far future, or any place where dragons or wizards rule—so, kudos to anyone who can make such realms feel truly lived in. “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” directed by Kogonada and written by Seth Reiss, offers a framework of fantasy that’s daringly extreme yet closely connected to ordinary realities. The story involves everyday people who need supernatural assistance to consider and appreciate their own lives. In this regard, it’s related, if distantly, to “It’s a Wonderful Life,” even if, in keeping with modern times, the angel who intervenes isn't a kindly old gent but an interactive digital device.

Colin Farrell plays David Langley, a single man living in an unnamed city who's about to drive to a wedding but finds his car ticketed and booted. Lo and behold, he notices a sign conveniently affixed to a wall, advertising “The Car Rental Agency,” as if it were the city’s only one. The agency is housed in a vast, nearly empty building, where a pair of eccentric employees—a cashier (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and a mechanic (Kevin Kline)—have only one kind of car to rent, a 1994 Saturn. They push David to get the supplementary G.P.S., and it turns out that they're contriving more than just an extra sale. The G.P.S. voice (Jodie Turner-Smith), interactive and seemingly sentient, guides David into the adventure of the title, and he shares this adventure with Sarah Myers (Margot Robbie), a woman whom he meets at the wedding and who's driving a Saturn from the same agency.