Two Friends, One Planet, a Lifetime in Motion

Read Time:5 Minute, 25 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Art of Adventure
–

Genre: Drama, Romance
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director(s): Mayumi Yoshida
Writer(s): Mayumi Yoshida
Cast: Mayumi Yoshida, Bun Kimura, Hana Kino, Chieko Matsubara, Kunio Murai, Hiro Kanagawa, Ryo Tajima, Jess McLeod, Shun Sugata, Annie the Clumsy
Where to Watch: shown at the 2025 Vancouver International Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: THE ART OF ADVENTURE tracks an irresistible premise with a simple confidence: two curious young Canadians—painter Robert Bateman and biologist Bristol Foster—set off in 1957 in a suped up Land Rover nicknamed “Grizzly Torque,” roaming across Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and Australia with a sketchbook, a 16mm camera, and more nerve than budget. Director Alison Reid doesn’t just recount where they went; she shows how a road trip crystallized into a lifelong mission, translating awe into action. The result is a buoyant, clear-eyed documentary that feels like a road movie first and a career retrospective second. That order matters—the film offers a lived experience, then threads it to legacy.

Structurally, it’s a two-lane highway. On one side, the film accompanies the 1957–58 journey through archival footage and the visual pleasure of notebooks, maps, and paint-smeared edges. On the other hand, it visits Bateman and Foster today—nonagenarians with a spark still in their hearts—plus voices like David Suzuki, Wade Davis, Guujaaw, and others who place that trip in a larger environmental and cultural context. Reid cuts between lanes with intention: a glimpse of youth is followed by a present-day reflection that reframes the same moment as formative rather than merely adventurous. That interplay gives the film momentum and scale without turning it into a bullet-point biography.

Reid’s best choice is to keep the film tactile. Settings are not abstract “elsewheres”; they’re specific places with specific textures—the bite of red dust, the clatter of an engine, the way morning light flattens distance. The archival material isn’t deployed as proof; it serves as the film’s connective tissue, a lived record that bridges the past and the present. Just as effective is the way Bateman’s canvases are mixed in—not as a gallery wall, but as interpretive acts that sit alongside the footage Bristol captured.

There’s pleasure in the mechanics: the camera’s whirr, the Land Rover’s roar, the ritual of living in the moment. Those details aren’t romanticized; they function as character development. You understand who these men are because of how they choose to move through the world—slowly, attentively, improvisationally. When the film pivots to the present—advocacy, teaching, the ongoing fight to protect habitats—the throughline is obvious. The trip wasn’t a detour from real life; it created the path of it.

Reid’s direction is assured. She resists biography and gives her subjects room to be specific and, at times, vulnerable. Bristol’s candor about the pressures he faced as a young man and the solace he found in wild places adds resonance to the film’s quieter passages. Bateman’s reflections on making—how form can carry an ethical stance without a soapbox—flesh out the idea that attention is a moral act. The film’s humor—dry and sociable—keeps the tone human when the stakes become heavy. And crucially, the documentary trusts viewers to connect dots; it doesn’t drown the adventure in rhetoric, even as it’s frank about what’s been lost since 1957 and what can still be protected.

The editing balances the timeline and testimony without tangling, and the sound design weaves archival reels with contemporary interviews, so the past doesn’t feel sealed off. The score supports without sanctifying; it invites a sense of movement rather than straining for grandeur.

What lingers is the film’s argument for curiosity as practice. THE ART OF ADVENTURE isn’t a nostalgia piece about “when the world was untouched.” It’s a case study in how the act of paying attention can change a life, then a community, then policy. The final passages aren’t elegiac; they’re invitational. The men are in their nineties, yes, but the film’s posture is forward. You leave thinking less about having been entertained and more about making a plan—pick up a field guide, take a walk, look longer, ask better questions, lend your skills to a cause. It’s a documentary that quietly converts admiration into agency.

As an experience, it’s engaging, warm, and impressively cohesive—the kind of discovery that plays beautifully for general audiences without sanding off its personality. It celebrates two remarkable careers while making a larger, necessary point: wonder is not naïve; it’s fuel. In a crowded nonfiction landscape, that clarity—and the lived proof backing it—sets this one apart. One of the moments that will forever stay with me is when it was mentioned that this trip wouldn’t be possible again; this was a once-in-history opportunity that is now immortalized.

Please visit https://linktr.ee/overlyhonestr for more reviews.

You can follow me on Letterboxd, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. My social media accounts can also be found on most platforms by searching for 'Overly Honest Reviews'.

I’m always happy to hear from my readers; please don't hesitate to say hello or send me any questions about movies.

[photo courtesy of FREE SPIRIT FILMS]

DISCLAIMER:
At Overly Honest Movie Reviews, we value honesty and transparency. Occasionally, we receive complimentary items for review, including DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, Vinyl Records, Books, and more. We assure you that these arrangements do not influence our reviews, as we are committed to providing unbiased and sincere evaluations. We aim to help you make informed entertainment choices regardless of our relationship with distributors or producers.

Amazon Affiliate Links:
Additionally, this site contains Amazon affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may receive a commission. This affiliate arrangement does not affect our commitment to honest reviews and helps support our site. We appreciate your trust and support in navigating these links.