**Release date:** 19 September 2025 (UK)
**Starring:** Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell
**Director:** Kogonada
**Screenplay:** Seth Reiss
**Running time:** 1h 49m

Oh no, I thought, as soon as this one got going. It’s going to be whimsical.

There’s something very annoying about whimsy. Is it trying for clever? If I don’t get it, is that my fault or the whimsy’s fault? Is it…actually just quite shit?

Luckily for the whimsy, the baby woke up every 2 hours like clockwork last night, and as a consequence I am feeling extremely effing whimsical today. We arrived half an hour late for the diabolical 9.50 start time, dribbling uncontrollably (her), shaking with exhaustion (me) and blinking in wide eyed confusion at the whole situation (both of us). I’ve never done LSD, but I’m wondering if the aftermath feels at all similar.

*I’m not going mad am I? Those are definitely pyjamas.*

Ok, so if you’ve had any sleep recently your rational and functioning brain might find this one quite confusing. Essentially, Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie have both hired cars with GPS (that part’s crucial) to drive a very long way to a wedding where they immediately strike up a weird and intense conversation about marriage and dating, she proposes to him and they spend the rest of the party staring intensely at each other while she dances and he doesn’t (I’m suddenly realising Colin Farrell would have been a great shout for Darcy, if there were any need to remake P&P post 1995, which to be clear, there isn’t). Margot Robbie appears to be attending the wedding in pyjamas, and let me tell you, when Margot does that, it’s the most impossibly elegant thing you’ve ever seen in your life, because of course it is.

You know when you read a book that’s so good it doesn’t make you feel bad that you’ll never write something that good, you’re just thrilled it exists? Watching Margot Robbie, just existing, when you’re four months post partum, feels like that. It could be depressing, but it’s not.

So, after the weird wedding Margot’s car breaks down and Colin Farrell has to give her a lift. The GPS by this point has gone mental and started doing weird things like addressing Colin by name and telling him to pull over for a ‘fast food burger’. Obviously, if this happened to anyone in the real world they’d immediately turn the GPS off and use their phone (to call the police), but this is a whimsical film, so instead Colin stops for the burger, where he of course meets Margot also eating a fast food burger (one of the least believable parts of the film). The fast food burger, incidentally, is also doing its part to reinforce the fantasy, setting impossible beauty standards for burgers everywhere.

After this they go on a weird journey together where they open up magic doors and confront various difficult aspects of their pasts. It’s all very healing journey. By now, call me deranged (I am) but I'm kind of here for it. It’s odd, saccharine and not particularly original in its ideas, but it’s all done with a sort of sweet sincerity that feels like it’s skirting just the right side of the whimsy line. Rather than the pompous self importance of, say, the Interstellar/Inception universe. I even decided to forgive the questionable scene where Colin Farrell reenters his school musical and, as an adult, professes his love for his teenage cast mate. I’m pretty sure this is one of the things a less insane me would have more of an issue with, but as with everything else this morning, it sort of washed over me in a trippy haze of coffee, milk and derangement. It’s probably best if I avoid internet shopping for the rest of the day.

(Incidentally, this bit reminded me of the time at school we did Fiddler on the Roof as a cast of 14/15 year olds, with our 40 something English teacher playing Tevye. That’s…that’s probably not ok is it?)

In conclusion, it’s all a bit odd and in the end doesn’t really have a huge amount to say, but it’s under two hours, it takes itself just seriously enough without being insufferable, and it doesn’t attempt any sort of annoying ‘it was all a dream’ or ‘you’ll never be clever enough to understand this nonsense’ ending (I’m looking at you again, Inception.)

My overriding feeling, as me and the baby danced to the end credits like two drunks at the end of a wedding and a feeling of complete sleep deprived insanity began to swallow me whole, was - why not?

Why not write a weird film about magic doors? Why not go to a wedding in pyjamas? Why not have a baby and never, ever sleep again?

*I do not believe that either of these people ate these burgers*

Good things: They’re just both so beautiful aren’t they? As were the burgers. Being totally honest here, I don’t remember a huge amount about this film beyond those facts.

Bad things: I actually refuse to dunk on it. The world is full of people dunking on things. I’m very tired. Here’s to whimsy.

My review: Sure, why not?

Lily’s review: One poo

Next week: One Battle After Another. Are they trolling me with these film titles?

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

One Battle After Another

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale