Excursion was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Tuesday, May 14th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Iman (Asja Zara Lagumdzija) is just a girl, trying to do her best in upper middle school, whatever grade that is officially I am not sure. Just the last one of the middle school in that country. Every year the kids get to go on an excursion to another country or area, and it is a long process to figure out. They have parental involvement, a lot of politics, and a lot of worries about the price. Because sure, they could go somewhere fancy, but if the whole class cant go because its too expensive, then maybe it shouldn’t be a trip.

They mostly want to go to Italy, despite the fact that it is expensive. They are worried about going to a poorer country and getting taken advantage of, or in trouble.

But back to Iman. She is a smart girl, she studies and gets As, and helps her bestie cheat. What a friend. During a game of truth or dare, she agrees with a question that, according to another boy, they had sex. Yes of course this is true. Shocking to everyone. But it is true! This lie of course, has to be believed, so it leads to more and more lies, making things more uncomfortable, until the obvious starts to spill over.

Also starring Maja Izetbegovic, Izudin Bajrovic, Mediha Musliovic, and Nadja Spaho.

girlsroom
Just kids lying and being kids I guess.
Excursion is a very tame film. Fun fact, by the end, you won’t see the excursion happen. That isn’t like half of the film, it is zero of the film. But the discussion of said trip is a large portion of the plot, usually involved with just parents and teachers, but it pads this movies run time. It is barely over 90 minutes, and it really needs that padding.

The films other plot, about Iman’s lies are just…disappointing. This giant blow up never really occurs either. People hear the rumors and spread them as kids. There was talk of an abortion occurring. Some of the teachers also become aware of it. But nothing ever really boils over into the “this is too much” area of the film that one hopes this would build up to!

In fact, this is an independent film that really feels like it had the idea for the story, but not the idea on how to end said story. Too much is left unresolved, and this overall just feels like a bigger waste of my time. The story is unexciting, and neither of the main plot points are resolved. It was just a small look into the life of this group of kids. And sure, films like that exist. But it is wild how many independent films just decide they can end it suddenly and say that is what they were going for. At some point, you have to call it out, and that is what I am doing for Excursion here.

A waste of time, a story that doesn’t live up to its plot outline, or its title.

1 out of 4.