by Robert Bouffard, Editor
Sometimes the best situation to watch a movie is when you have no idea what you’re getting into. Whereas I went into The Banshees of Inisherin with it as my most anticipated movie of the year, all I knew about Aftersun, which I saw immediately after Banshees, was that it was a highly touted A24 movie. That probably had a hand in it absolutely blowing me away.
It starts off simply: on their TV, someone is watching old camcorder footage of a vacation in Turkey between a dad in his early 30s, Calum (Paul Mescal), and his 11-year-old daughter, Sophie (Frankie Corio). It’s just a fragment of real life, from an obviously and now painfully limited perspective. We eventually realize that it’s Sophie herself, now an adult (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who’s been looking back at these cherished memories with her father. A recurring scene in a strobing nightclub, where faces are obscured and movements are imperceptible, implies a longing, a deep yearning, for understanding — the tension between what we remember, what we think we remember but really don’t, and what we wish we knew is hauntingly at the center of the film.
It’s implied that Sophie and her dad are no longer in touch. Whether that’s because he died, they had a falling out, or if it’s some other reason entirely, it’s never made clear. What we know for sure is that Sophie is looking back, wanting to more fully understand who her father was. Watching the film through the first time, most scenes feel nostalgic and real, almost in a Richard Linklater sense. It’s just a bunch of moments of a dad and daughter connecting during what appears to be their all-too-limited time together. It’s tender and wholesome, and Mescal and Corio have such electric yet honest chemistry, and each give outstanding performances in their own right.
But sprinkled in with these good memories are the those of when times were difficult. Sophie loses her scuba goggles in one scene, and the two of them have a seemingly minor tiff in another, though it turns out to be the central, formative thematic event for the story. Director Charlotte Wells said of her feature debut that much of it is personal. And that deep truth comes through in each scene. But it’s the way that Wells beautifully weaves in universal anxieties about memory and relationships that elevates Aftersun above your run-of-the-mill debut film, with an ending that hits you like a Turkish wave. A particular scene towards the end of Sophie singing karaoke will leave you speechless, as the crux of the film screams its yearning message at you with an impressive nuance.
Wells controls the camera and narrative with such assurance, as most of it is told through the eyes of the precocious Sophie. Most shots focusing on her are clear and straightforward, as much is in the life of a child. But she also knows there’s something going on with her dad. He’s dealing with unnamed mental health issues. The cause and specific effects are elusive to Sophie, but she knows something’s up. Maybe it’s why she’s still studying the footage from this vacation decades later, out of there being something incomplete in her relationship with her dad.
The most prominent shots of Calum are the ones where we don’t get a clear image of him. Shots through mirrors, glass tables, or windows frustratingly and heartbreakingly distort his image, much like the way his memory is distorted to Sophie. You root for him and love him because he obviously loves his daughter, but it’s unclear how good or present of a father he’s been for her short 11 years. And Sophie, who spends most of her time with her mother (who Calum is separated from), and who is wise beyond her years, detects some of this, and reassures him when she can. There’s an underlying love and empathy between the pair, and it permeates the film.
Aftersun almost feels plain at times. Calum and Sophie are at a resort, but there’s construction going on at their hotel and they can’t afford the all-access wristbands. It’s just scene after scene of them doing the things everyone does on vacation — swimming, eating, playing games. Scene by scene, it’s almost unremarkable. But when looked at as a whole, Aftersun is both uplifting and devastating, and this cocktail of emotions could start the tears flowing if you even just think about it long enough. I imagine this will be even more moving come a second viewing. Not because you figured out a twist like a Christopher Nolan movie, but because you know what the emotional crescendo will be, which will make every preceding scene hit about 10 times harder.
Memories are almost bound to be altered. We convince ourselves things happened one way, when the opposite is true. Or the details are just lost to time, amongst the millions of other things we stuff into our brains. Looking back is an inherently human proclivity, and Wells prods at it in an eerily melancholy way. But as is true in life, amidst that melancholy, we can find glimpses of joy. That, thankfully, is where Aftersun lives.
Score: 10/10
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