Aftersun (2022) Movie Review
Aftersun is the first feature film for writer and director Charlotte Wells. Her first attempt is fantastic but extremely understated and quiet. The movie is told from the perspective of eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) who is on vacation with her father Calum (Paul Mescal). Calum and Sophie’s mom are clearly not together anymore and Calum looks young enough to be mistaken for her brother.
The father-daughter duo goes on holiday to a resort in Turkey. It’s a nice vacation but nothing goes quite right. The room was supposed to have two beds but there’s only one, forcing Calum to sleep on a cot. The resort is under construction so the sound of hammering and drilling is heard whenever they’re at the pool. It’s clear Calum can barely afford this level of vacation, something that Sophie picks up on and wields when it suits her. When she loses her snorkeling goggles, she apologizes to Calum and notes, “I know they were expensive.” He looks mystified–certain he had been able to hide his money issues from her. Later on, when they’re having a tiff she tells him to stop promising to pay for things that they both know he can’t afford.
The movie is slow moving and shows normal people doing normal things. The pair put sunscreen on each other at the pool, eat dinners together, watch horrifically bad singers perform, and get irritated with one another. This isn’t some luxury vacation with a glossy Hollywood finish. This is actually how vacations are in real life. The vacation scenes are interspersed with a scene at some type of rave with a flashing strobe light. Sophie is an adult and sees her dad who hasn’t aged, dancing across the room. As the film progresses we see her inching ever closer to him. There is also a scene of Sophie sleeping with her partner, now a parent herself. The parallels here are subtle as we watch the vacation unfold before our eyes.
Most scenes are from Sophie’s point of view. But others are just Calum and it’s hard to know if these scenes are real or if they’re what Sophie is imagining happened when she wasn’t around. Despite Calum’s youthfulness there is a world weariness about him and a longing that you sense will never be filled. At one point he notes that he didn’t think he’d make it to the age he is now. Learning that your parents are just regular people with their own problems, hopes, dreams, and disappointments is one of life’s hardest lessons. It’s even more difficult to realize that there are parts of your parents that they hide from you. Adult Sophie is still grappling with this and trying to reconcile her father’s different personas.
Perhaps what Wells does the best is to withhold. Throughout the entire movie we yearn to know more about Calum–what happened to him, why he seems to be so melancholy at times. Aside from one heartbreaking story about a birthday he had as a child, we don’t get to know much about his life. That works because we’re seeing things from Sophie’s point of view and she wouldn’t have access to Calum’s life outside of what she sees. Wells is careful to give us drips of information and leaves us wondering about these characters and longing to know them better. Mescal and Corio have amazing chemistry and are completely believable as family. Their level of comfort with each other feels authentic and is the reason the movie is so compelling.
Aftersun is an intimate and realistic look at the relationship between a daughter and her father. Mescal and Corio carry the film beautifully with two brilliant but understated performances and Wells proves she is a director to watch with a near perfect feature film debut.
You’ll like this movie if:
1. You like quiet, intimate stories
2. You are interested in parent/child relationships
3. You prefer realistic portrayals of life
