Aftersun review: A poignant memory trip
Review Overview
Cast
8Atmosphere
8Emotion
8David Farnor | On 06, Jan 2023
Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio
Certificate: 12
“I’ll record it in my little mind camera.” Those are the words of Sophie (Frankie Corio) as she holidays with her dad, Calum (Paul Mescal), one summer in Turkey. The resort is fading, their limited budget all but spent and they’re stuck sharing a double bed because their twin-room booking got muddled. But all that is easily forgotten, as Sophie recalls their cheerful time together – and that gap between what’s remembered and what’s not, which grows over time, is at the heart of Aftersun’s poignant effect.
Charlotte Wells makes a wonderfully confident feature debut at the helm, crafting a precisely vague atmosphere that ripples to the edges of the frame. She leans into the fragility of this fleeting summer, delicately picking at the melancholic strings running just beneath the surface unseen. She draws out of Frankie Corio a remarkable performance, at once innocent and obliviously happy while also astutely realising that something’s not right.
Her easygoing charm sees Sophie make friends with other kids at their resort, her eager facial expressions and excited happiness making it clear how devoted to her dad she is. But that gives way to regret, and maybe even resentment, as she questions why he promises her things he can’t afford or forgives him for disappearing for an evening.
Paul Mescal, meanwhile, builds on his star-making performance in Normal People with a fantastically brooding turn that speaks volumes with its quiet physicality. We watch as he does Tai Chi and presents a calm, composed facade – but a devastating edit after a jovial sing-song leaves us in doubt that he’s spiralling out of control.
Wells gently lulls us from one perspective to the other, then strikingly immerses us in a nightclub sequence that builds to a heartbreaking pay-off. It’s a mood poem that occasionally leaves things too opaque yet succeeds because it resists the urge to laboriously spell things out. One standout sequence sees Calum refuse to join Sophie in singing karaoke. “I think I thought I saw you cry,” she belts out by herself, while he watches on with sorrow and pride. This moving, absorbing dip into the waters of years gone by invites us to join Sophie in searching through the footage of a handheld camera to find meaning in the muddle of memory – and accept that some parts of the past may always remain unknowable.
Where to watch online in the UK:
This review was originally published during the 2021 London Film Festival.