“Aftersun”
Movie Review
Writer-director
Charlotte Wells’s film "Aftersun" is a father-daughter holiday drama starring
Paul Mezcal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall. Follows 11-year-old Sophie,
who goes on a summer holiday to Turkey with her loving and idealistic father Calum.
Twenty years later, she reminisces about the experience, reflecting on their
relationship and the role of him she never knew.
As
the children slowly grow into adults, romantically innocent, giving way to the
jitters of nerves, realizing that their parents once had to tread a bumpy road,
the all-encompassing truths of life become clear. It is at this point that one
begins to wonder: Who made me before I thought of making myself? In 'Aftersun'
by Charlotte Welle, 11-year-old Sophie played by Frankie Corio finds herself at
the center of these strategic crossroads.
Celia
Rowlson-Hall reminisces about a holiday in the '90s. Her father Calum, played
by Paul Mezcal, has moved from dreary Britain to the tropical beaches of
Turkey, with one arm in a sling and the other affectionately around his
sleeping daughter. Their hotel is a decrepit parade of desperation: scaffolding
covering the windows, workers carelessly cutting the silence, and preordained
requests ignored with blatant indifference. However, both continue to find joy
in the comic nature of minor tragedies.
A
resort across the street has a chlorinated pool where upper-class families
sunbathe. Kids giggle as they dive in, bellies dangerously full from an
expensive all-inclusive package. There, Sophie and Calum play billiards, Dad
gives a generous kickback, and the girl begins the special thrill of a fleeting
summer friendship. At night, the shy lights of lampposts creep into their
bedroom, the man grips his daughter's tiny wrists as she tries to wiggle free,
and the playfulness fades into despair, allowing him to contemplate the
darkness of the world he's briefly built an irresistible trap for women like
those before him.
Director
Charlotte Wells is not only beautifully attuned to the smallest nuances of human
sensibility, but also able to translate this natural inclination into a
sophisticated command over form. Here, she mixes the broken textures of
camcorder footage with the crisp angles of televisions to create portals,
corridors,aloe vera and bridges. Sophie and Calum are filled with such fierce
determination that one can smell the aloe-vera sweat and touch their hands as
they wander in search of each other.
A
reluctant embrace brings a gentle calm as both of them turn red and flushed
from the hot kisses of the Turkish sun. Words were gifted with love but spat
mercilessly, and Sophie was still too young to find the tools to respond to her
father's slow decline. These painful ruptures give the girl a glimpse into the
beautiful confusion of masculine time beyond parenthood. Maybe that's why
grown-up Sophie relives these days in her mind, the days when she first
realized her father was a person of his own.
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