David, Colin Farrell, finds his ordinary drive to a friend's wedding derailed the moment his car is clamped and he is drawn into a peculiar “Car Rental Company” that offers the only model left—a 1994 Saturn SL equipped with a mysterious GPS that feels almost sentient. This odd car becomes the ticket to a surreal road trip that promises a big, bold, beautiful journey, even as it blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
On the way to the wedding, he meets Sarah, Margot Robbie, a woman who is clearly uninterested in marriage or traditional commitments. David, an Irish immigrant who has carried the dream of being a husband and father since his teenage years, shares his own long-held wish with a quiet intensity. He declines to dance with her, a choice he soon comes to regret, and that night she ends up spending the night with someone else, leaving him with a sting of what could have been.
The GPS, a sly, almost pushy guide, nudges him to take a detour toward something larger than himself. The couple’s journey begins to take shape as the car’s route involves doors that appear at odd, almost dreamlike moments. After a rest-stop encounter at a Burger King, they unexpectedly cross paths again, discovering that they both rented cars from the same enigmatic company. When Sarah’s car refuses to start, the GPS instructs David to pick her up, and together they embark on a strange, increasingly intimate quest.
Their first stop is a door hidden in the woods, which opens to a lighthouse in Canada that David once visited. They return to the car and soon arrive at another door—the back entrance to Sarah’s favorite art museum. Inside, they wander through paintings she cherished with her late mother, a memory that painfully threads through her sense of loss. Back in the car, Sarah recalls a road trip with her estranged father and confesses a fear of hurting people, a fear that lingers like a shadow over her relationships.
Next, a greenhouse reveals doors to David’s high school. Inside, David relives a day as a fifteen-year-old, starring in the school production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, with Sarah and his parents in the audience. He confesses his feelings for a co-star and relives the moment of her rejection, but disrupts the show by speaking blunt truths about the future. In a surprising turn, Sarah joins the musical number, and the entire auditorium erupts in song as they move forward as if the world itself is cheering them on.
As night deepens, Sarah urges David not to pursue her, a plea that hangs in the air as the car hurtles onward. Then the journey shifts again to a theater-in-the-dark moment—a black box with doors leading to a hospital. Inside, Sarah confronts guilt over sleeping with her college professor instead of her mother, who died while she watched from a hospital bed. Meanwhile, David consoles his own anxious father, who fears the premature birth of his son. They press on, leaving the shop’s gift shop trinkets behind, and Sarah changes clothes in the backseat as David reveals that his mother briefly left the family when he was a child, underscoring how fragile life can be.
The ride takes them to a mountain overlook where they imagine what could have happened if they had attended the wedding together, sharing a kiss as the planet stretches out beneath them. A roadside billboard door opens to a cafe, where David faces a confrontation with his former fiancée about ending their engagement, while Sarah confronts an ex-boyfriend she walked away from. Each confronts their romantic failings, and they return to the road only to hit a deer. They escape unscathed, but the car is destroyed, a blunt reminder that the fantasy is temporary and fragile.
Sarah then proposes ending the journey before they hurt each other any more. David tells her he loves her, but she insists they are still living in a dream rather than reality. They spend a quiet night at the Timely Inn while the car is repaired. When they part, each is drawn to revisit their childhoods: David comforts his fifteen-year-old self, while Sarah relives a joyful night with her mother as a twelve-year-old girl. David returns the car, joking with the Cashier and Mechanic about matching customers with soulmates, a bittersweet moment of playful truth.
But fate, and perhaps a stubborn belief in destinies, pulls Sarah back to the doorstep of David’s life. She arrives at his address, courageous and certain, and confesses that she loves him. They share a kiss and walk hand in hand toward a shared future, stepping through the doorway together and into a life that feels both wonderfully possible and deeply earned.
