Aftersun (2022)
It’s hard to completely separate a personal experience from fiction when immersing yourself into a story. I often think of why Mulholland Drive became my all-time favorite and it’s safe to say that I identified with Betty/Diane especially once the truth about what happened to her is revealed later on. I preface this with the feeling that Aftersun could be another movie where a reaction may very well depend on the kind of relationship you’ve had to a parent, in this case, a father.
I had a strong one given the fact that he comes up so often in my podcast and reviews. A film like this resonates with me for similar reasons as the director has relayed. He did pass suddenly at a very young age to where there are a lot of unsolved mysteries revolving around who he was before he became my father. Or if he struggled with any personal mental health issues that he tried to keep from me. Once again, I felt a very warm association between the characters in this film due to having taken solo trips with my own dad. This is also a story about what happens when we realize our parents are imperfectly human, fallible and subject to behavioral inconsistencies that affect our perceptions.
Aftersun follows the story of a young woman named Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) who, on the eve of her birthday, goes through her childhood home movies documenting the last summer she spent in Turkey with her emotionally distant father Calum (Paul Mescal). The majority of the story is shown in flashback, featuring newcomer Frankie Corio as young Sophie. Charlotte Wells directs what is clearly an intimate, autobiographical film from her own script in a reserved yet remarkable debut that makes you excited for what’s to come.
It does move slowly and in fragmented vignettes that often contain minutiae. There’s a moment right at the start where Sophie asks her dad what he wanted to accomplish by a certain age and there’s an abrupt cut. We later on see the scene play out in full. There are moments where a camera is simply placed facing objects while we listen attentively to the words being spoken elsewhere. More often than not, this film almost feels like looking through a photo album as much as it does contain sporadic bits of home video footage.
The use of music is also an influential factor in what makes this so effective. You get a sense of the time period based on the popularity of the Macarena among the hotel staff. A moment involving R.E.M karaoke will forever be embedded in my mind due to how Corio plays that entire sequence fearlessly. A third-act dance scene where both Sophie and Calum let loose is about as cathartic as Aftersun gets, but even then there's an accompanying sense of disconnect. Usually music connects us together but even some of the strobe-light dance moments feel off-center. All of these choices add up to an amalgamation of sweetness and melancholy, leading up to a truly moving climax.
Aftersun is practically the definition of a small unassuming indie movie that you’d find on a festival circuit, but the emotional impact sneaks up on you at the end. Especially when you think of the final moment as being “final” for the young girl and the director. The film feels like a warm embrace of the past while acknowledging that it’s still always present due to how we’ve retained certain memories of those we were closest to. This tiny, intimately well-observed drama tackles some challenging questions without providing answers through a beautiful and simple lens of a father-daughter relationship that is full of beauty and ambiguity. It’s a film I won’t soon forget.
