A Big Bold Beautiful Journey: An Argument for Hope and the Problem of Induction
ATTENTION: THIS HAS SPOILERS
On a flight back to New York from Fort Lauderdale, I was browsing the movie list and saw one starring Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie — and I picked it. No other reason. I hadn't heard of it until that moment.
It was called A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and I’d say it’s one of my favorite movies of all time — sitting there next to The Shawshank Redemption and Braveheart.
I wasn’t prepared for it. Again and again, I found myself being struck by what felt to me like raw truths about life and the human condition: the ups and downs, the tradeoffs we make, uncertainty, and outcomes that are beyond our control.
Before I say why it hit me the way it did, here are two definitions I'm using as a lens:
The story follows David and Sarah, two single, middle-aged city dwellers who end up on a fantastical journey through doors that function as portals to past moments in their lives. Some experiences play out exactly as they did before. Others replay differently — giving them the chance to participate on new terms, with updated perspectives. As they share these experiences, we (the audience) get a glimpse into who they are, what shaped them, what holds them back, what keeps them going — and what they still think is worth fighting for.
It's a device for one question: are we stuck being who we've been?
The first moment that really struck me comes after David relives a high school memory. In the car afterward, Sarah tells him he was different back then — more heart on his sleeve. And David, almost grieving it, says (paraphrasing): that was him back when he thought everything would work out for him… that he’d get what he wanted… and that he’d be happy.
When you’re young, it can feel like the world is in front of you. The dreams are grand. There’s a kind of certainty in your conviction that things will work out according to some plan — like you were destined for it, and forces will conspire to ensure things line up behind you.
And then years pass.
You realize life is less simple. There are only 24 hours in a day. Devoting yourself to one cause comes at the expense of another. Life isn’t only bitter and it isn’t only sweet.
It just is.
Another similarly introspective moment occurs later in the film, when Sarah revisits her mother as her 12-year-old self and asks her to play “pretend” to work through a fear:
"I’m bad with men, Mom." — Sarah "So am I." — Sarah's Mother "Why? Why is that?" — Sarah "Oh, I wish I knew. I’m still trying to figure that out." — Sarah's Mother
Her mother — divorced and single — doesn’t have the answer Sarah wants. Not the comforting answer that it’s a clean, tractable problem with a clear solution and a tidy path to a happy and meaningful life.
Just honesty. Just: I don’t fully understand it either.
And then there’s the café scene, where David relives breaking up with his fiancée. In this version, he’s pushed for the truth — why did he fall out of love? And he says something brutal and real about how hope works inside him:
"I genuinely believed that I could make you happy. And that’s all I wanted. That hope is everything to me. It means that every day I’m pursuing you and I’m pleasing you. It’s beautiful. It’s meaningful. Until I have you, and then, it all becomes meaningless. And then I start feeling myself again — the me that I was before we met — except this time I’m more tired. And then I wake up one morning and I’m about as fucking empty as I have ever been. And… you’ll never make me happy." — David
It’s not “rainbows and butterflies.” It’s a changing of the heart that even the person experiencing it can’t fully explain. The characters can’t always locate the problem. They’re offered no guarantees that whatever caused the grief won’t show up again.
But life goes on for them — as it does for all of us. They do their best to move forward with new scars.
Hope and the problem with treating the past like a prophecy
As the title suggests, this is a movie about hope — about believing that change is possible.
And more specifically: it’s about not confusing patterns for promises.
It’s about rejecting the idea that past shortfalls are any guarantee of future results — and also rejecting the idea that repeated failure means the issue is necessarily something pathological about you: that whatever ails you is who you are, that it’s permanent, that it can’t be changed.
Sometimes it’s just a pattern you’ve lived inside so long that you’ve mistaken it for truth.
The turkey, fed daily, concludes it will always be fed… until one dreadful night before Thanksgiving. We do this too. We take what’s happened so far and quietly upgrade it into certainty. We let it dictate what we think is possible.
But if hope means anything, it means refusing that upgrade. It means staying open.
And that’s the hard part — because staying open requires a leap. There’s no guarantee this time is different from the previous times. There’s no guarantee you won’t get burned again.
But then you’re left with the question: if you don’t take certain leaps, if you don’t make certain changes — when you’re looking back at the whole thing — will you feel content with the status quo? Or haunted by the what-ifs?
I don’t know the right answer. But it’s worth thinking about.
Not a Disney ending: contentment before happiness
Regardless of how you answer that, the movie also suggests it’s not the Disney-movie-ending we should be chasing.
In the scene with Sarah and her mother — still pretending — her mother says something that’s worth sitting with:
"I’m scared I’m not gonna be a good adult, Mom." — Sarah "You know sweetheart, you are capable of being content in this life. You just have to choose it." — Sarah's Mother "What about being happy?" — Sarah "You can make yourself crazy trying to be happy. Be content first. Choose to be content. And enjoy the moments of happiness that come from that." — Sarah's Mother
That feels like the mature version of “hope” this movie is actually defending. Not fantasy. Not certainty. Just a grounded commitment to building a life you can live inside.
David and Sarah: openness vs fear
Pain, reflection, and a glimmer of hope — hope that there’s something worthwhile still out there.
David longs for that hope early on. Life hasn’t taken it from him yet. Sarah, jaded by years of letting herself down, has lost that piece of her. She keeps returning to the fear:
"Why are you so certain we’re gonna hurt each other?" — David "Were you not paying attention back there in the café? That’s just who we are." — Sarah "That’s who we were, it doesn’t mean it has to be who we are, Sarah. This whole journey is a chance for us to be open. Life is better when you’re open." — David
"And I love you. And not some idea of you. I love you, all of you." — David "Maybe you feel that way right now. But what about tomorrow? What about next week? What about next month? Once you have me, really have me. Then what?" — Sarah
"It’s about believing. For the first time, maybe ever. It’s about believing that it’s possible." — David "What is?" — Sarah "To share a life." — David "It’s just not worth the risk for me. I’m sorry." — Sarah "It’s okay." — David
David’s answer is essentially: we don’t have to let the pattern be the prophecy. We can be open. Life is better when you’re open.
And in the last scene, with all of life’s experiences still haunting her — with no guarantee that a fairy-tale ending will ever exist for her — Sarah finally takes the leap:
"I think… I think we could be content together. And in love. And I love you." — Sarah
That’s what the movie is, to me: an argument for hope — not as certainty, not as Disney, but as a willingness to stay open even when you can’t prove it will be different this time.