L'AVENTURA reviewed by Duru Usanmaz

At first glance, L’AVENTURA (2025) looks like a warm summer postcard sent from Sardinia but Sophie Letourneur’s feature-length portrayal of a family’s holiday slowly reveals that the postcard only shows one side. As the story unfolds, the film turns the light-hearted feeling of its opening scenes upside down, uncovering the quiet tension and fragility beneath the surface.

What begins as a spontaneous, unplanned trip soon becomes a tender portrait of ordinary family chaos. Claudine, almost eleven, records every moment of their journey on her phone, determined to tell the story of her family’s adventure as it happens. Claudine’s way of narrating the trip not only highlights the beauty of summer but also captures the fatigue, confinement, and subtle messiness that come with it.

Her narration is constantly interrupted by her younger brother Raoul’s tantrums, by the family’s small misfortunes, and by the simple unpredictability of life on the road. The family drifts from place to place, staying in small hotel rooms, stopping at random, and always somehow coming back together. Through her deliberately fragmented editing style, Letourneur mirrors this rhythm: time loops, memories overlap, and moments blur into one another, much like the way childhood recollections unfold - messy, incomplete, but full of life.

The characters feel drawn straight from real life. Raoul, the three-year-old brother, behaves like any child you might encounter anywhere in the world, crying over the sweets he can’t have, demanding attention, and throwing little fits of frustration. It’s this universality that make L’AVENTURA so relatable: every viewer recognises a version of their own family in these imperfect, funny, and loving people.

Letourneur frequently relies on close-ups, grounding the film’s perspective in physical and emotional proximity. The framing often focuses on facial expressions - sometimes awkward, sometimes tender capturing unfiltered moments of frustration, boredom, and affection that define family life. This abundance of close shots reinforces the film’s documentary-like texture: instead of creating cinematic distance, it places the viewer directly inside the family’s cramped, intimate world, where every sigh or glance feels amplified.

Visually, the film’s warm, sun-drenched palette dominated by yellows, ochres, and natural light evokes both nostalgia and fatigue. The handheld camera captures life as it happens: uneven, shaky, but sincere. Claudine’s phone recordings and Letourneur’s close framing transform the film into a kind of diary storytelling that feels spontaneous, domestic, and emotionally raw rather than traditionally cinematic.

One of the film’s most striking moments arrives toward the end, when Letourneur shifts from the noise of the journey to a quieter, more reflective tone. Without resorting to melodrama, she captures the calmness that often follows chaos a rare cinematic acknowledgment that emotional distance can be gentle, not tragic.

The film closes with a moment that blurs the boundary between memory and recording, childhood and time. Letourneur ends on a note of reflection, suggesting that the camera like memory itself can only ever hold fragments. It’s a subtle, moving conclusion that lingers long after the screen fades.