A Big Bold Beautiful Journey tells you, just by its try-hard title alone, that it’s going to be one of those cringe-inducing fantasy romances. Written by Seth Reiss, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey is the new film by Korean-American director Kogonada, whose first two features, Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), were very well received critically. But A Big Bold Beautiful Journey seems to be striving for popular emotional appeal that it never achieves. So, whether or not they were ever the truly nerdy, acting in A Big Bold Beautiful Journey was probably still good nostalgic fun for the actors themselves. Or will they swap colors — David in red, Sarah in blue — to indicate their willingness to adapt to each other?