Film reviews: 'A Big Bold Beautiful Journey' moves far too slowly

Plus 'Girls & Boys' and 'The Swallow' reviewed

Fri, 19 Sep, 2025 - 16:00

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

★★★☆☆

Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie take an unexpected road trip towards love in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (15a). Farrell plays the single David who insists he hasn’t yet found “the one”. As he makes his way to a friend’s wedding, he assures his parents that he enjoys being single. However, one might wonder if he doth protest too much.

When David’s car gets clamped, he rents a vehicle from Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, quirky individuals who insist he take a late 1990s model with a peculiar GPS.

At the wedding, David meets Sarah (Robbie), a commitment-phobic heartbreaker who admits to hurting people when they get too close. Despite an initial attraction, David panics when Sarah asks him to dance and retreats to bed, later regretting his decision.

The next day, we discover that Sarah also rented a car from the same place as David. The GPS systems in their two cars conspire to bring them together.

Neither of them questions it, but decide to embrace the big, bold, beautiful journey. The story leads them through doors to their pasts — literally, doors appear in forests and the middle of roads.

In the past, they meet old flames and confront losses they have long overlooked, and in David’s case, he returns to high school, allowing Farrell to showcase his musical theatre talents. Will healing their past help them love in the present?

The film is directed by Kogonada, who previously directed After Yang, starring Farrell. Kogonada’s films often have a meditative pace, but this one moves far too slowly. There are lovely moments, and viewed as a series of vignettes, the film is quite beautiful; however, as a cohesive whole, it doesn’t always gel. Farrell and Robbie work well together, but this journey never quite takes off.

by Cara O’Doherty

Girls & Boys

★★★★☆

Girls & Boys (15A) stars Liath Hannon as Charlie, a trans Trinity College film student who meets Jace (Adam Lunnon-Collery) at a Halloween party. One of Trinity’s rugby-playing jocks, albeit a touch more sensitive than his laddish mates, Jace is immediately attracted to Charlie; when the gardaí raid the party venue and cause everyone to scatter, Charlie and Jace find themselves alone and wandering the city streets.

Written and directed by Donncha Gilmore, Girls & Boys leans into the. conventions of the romantic drama, with the obvious twist that Charlie is trans.

A more pertinent twist, however, is the fact that Jace knows Charlie is trans even before they leave the party, which delivers an added frisson to the awkward, first-date conversation as the pair size one another up, try to find another party, film the nightlife with Charlie’s Super-8, and gradually reveal their truths. It’s effectively a two-hander (although Francis O’Mahony impresses in the supporting role of Charlie’s best friend and flatmate), and Liath Hannon and Adam Lunnon-Collery create a believably fragile chemistry that survives the occasional eruption of clumsily forced dialogue.

By turns charming and heartbreaking, Girls & Boys is an accomplished feature-length debut from Donncha Gilmore that should also prove a breakout role for Liath Hannon.

by Declan Burke

The Swallow

★★★★☆

The Swallow (G) stars Brenda Fricker as an unnamed artist living alone in a small house on the Irish coast, sifting through her old correspondence, photographs, and home movies, and writing a letter (or series of letters) to a former lover.

Written and directed by Tadhg O’Sullivan, The Swallow is a meditative piece, a cinematic prose-poem comprised of long, slow pans across the landscape and the cluttered house: the only dialogue is that of the artist’s in a voiceover as she composes her letters (always against the steady but unobtrusive ticking of the clock) and comes to terms with life, love, loss, and art, and the ‘small immortalities’ to be found in each.

It’s a beautifully understated performance from Brenda Fricker, who exudes a stillness that speaks volumes for the artist’s acceptance of aging and life’s hard-won insights.

by Declan Burke