01/07/2025 - Sophie Letourneur lays life bare in all its simplicity in a sophisticated, ricocheting story about a French couple and their two young children on a touring holiday in Sardinia

Bérénice Vernet, Sophie Letourneur, Philippe Katerine and Esteban Melero in L’Aventura

"Nothing’s going on” – “It’s life, everything’s going on." As demonstrated by this exchange between the two parents of the family toplining Sophie Letourneur’s L’Aventura [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which opened the Cannes Film Festival’s ACID line-up and which Arizona Distribution are releasing in French cinemas on 2 July, human life in all its rich banality is placed under the microscope in this movie.

After the holiday in Sicily depicted in the jocular film Voyages en Italie [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], we once again find ourselves following in the wake of the Parisian couple composed of Sophie (played by the director herself) and Jean-Phi (Philippe Katerine). But this time round, we’re heading to Sardinia and taking the children – pre-teen Claudine (Bérénice Vernet) and three-year-old Raoul (Esteban Melero) – on wanderings which prove to be anything but relaxing.

Departing Paris in a sleeper train, catching the ferry to Porto Torres and then descending through western Sardinia, notably via Alghero, before heading further south to the island of San Pietro, the family have decided to improvise this trip ("I haven’t planned anything, it’ll be an adventure", "we don’t know where we’re going"), which only adds to the stress of travelling with young children (endlessly packing and repacking bags, managing sweet but excitable Raoul and his toileting needs, which soon take over their lives). The film opts for a highly accurate level of realism, enhanced by the typical ingredients of a summer spent in Italy (ice creams, pizzas, beaches, armbands, sea swimming and sandcastles, bars and restaurants, agrotourism, etc.) and the usual highs and lows of a nomadic family holiday (the more or less pleasant discovery of different locations, Jean-Phi’s many worries about the heat, the potential theft of their baggage or car shock absorbers, and minor disagreements between the parents - "why did you bring a duvet?" – “My wallet’s in the blue trousers” – “I forgot the blue trousers"). It’s an impeccable in-vivo study, portrayed in "windowless cabin" style and setting out everyone’s place in the family, which would be nothing other than nice were it not for the director’s talent for storytelling (she wrote the screenplay herself, together with Laetitia Goffi, and edited the movie too).

"There, it’s recording". The story is actually told as the trip unfolds, by the protagonists themselves, who try to remember what they’ve done over the previous days in disjointed  conversations (scripted in great detail) which lead to a host of repetitions, plenty of back and forth via muddled flashbacks (as if going up and down the same staircase, one step forwards, two steps back, three steps forward, etc.) and endlessly bouncing around, to the point the viewer can wholly empathise with the slight confusion reigning in this road-movie revolving around a mini-chaotic holiday. A multi-faceted and very subtle work - technically speaking - about immediate and eternal memory, L’Aventura sees us breaking and entering into a universally recognisable family microcosm by way of a film which imposes itself with great formal ease, like an intriguing cinematographic shooting star.

L’Aventura was produced by Atelier de Production and Tourne Films, in co-production with Sacré Vendredi Productions. Best Friend Forever are steering international sales.

(Translated from French)