Mark Reviews Movies: AFTERSUN

Aftersun, A24

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 27, 2022

An 11-year-old daughter asks her father what he thought his life would be like when he was 11. No answer comes to that question or assorted others throughout Aftersun, the simple, intimate, and quietly devastating account of a father and daughter from Scotland on vacation in Turkey.

By all accounts, this fictionalized story is loosely based on writer/director Charlotte Wells' own experiences. That's not to suggest the film is richer because it's semi-autobiographical or that anyone should attempt to dig any deeper into the filmmaker's life, in order to get at some of the facts that are omitted and passed over within the film. Such mysteries are part of the central point. We may know and be close to someone for our entire lives, but can we really know and truly be close to anyone in this life? That's what haunts us so often: thinking that we should know and be close to others, while growing to realize that we cannot.

Wells' story is a collection of scenes, although that might suggest some kind of dramatic flow within those moments and through the entire narrative. Such is not especially the case, because the film does re-create easy rhythm and somewhat aimless purpose of a vacation.

Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her 30-year-old father Calum (Paul Mescal) get on a shuttle bus from the airport, travel to their hotel, and spend the rest of the time hanging out in the room, on the balcony, by the pool, at various cafés, and at the site of a historically famous mud bath. Some things go according to plan. Most of the plans, though, go awry in small ways that are relatively insignificant—until we realize just how important this trip is to both of these characters. Only one of them might know just how vital this time is.

We, of course, have some sense that something important is going on here, if only because Wells believed this mostly laid-back story was worth telling as her feature debut in the first place. She puts a lot of trust in the audience to stick with so many moments of these two characters spending time together.

Sometimes, they talk about subjects that amount to small talk, such as conversation over meals, and other times, they speak about matters that are important and only take on more significance once we understand the outcome of this relationship. Often, the two don't speak at all, and depending on whose perspective we're considering at the time, those silences are either perfectly ordinary or filled with lost opportunities that might never return.

So much of this film is about reading between the lines of these conversations, these moments of bonding, and those loaded instances of quiet. For her part, Wells gives this story and these characters plenty of space for us to inspect.

On the surface, this is a lovely story about a smart, thoughtful, and considerate girl and her doting, equally silly and sincere, gentle, and, above all else, loving father simply spending time together. Corio and Mescal have such natural presences and such an immediately obvious sense of connection that, if that were all the film amounted to, it would offer plenty of rewards.

Things do go wrong with the trip from the start, though, but note how Calum adjusts and, just as importantly, how Sophie notices—if only just enough that it becomes part of the tableau of memories that make up this narrative. Upon arriving in the hotel room, the two discover that there's only a single bed, even though Calum paid for a room with two. With Sophie asleep after the long trip in the bed while her father tries to work out the issue, Calum, realizing there's only going to be one bed for the trip, takes off his daughter's shoes, covers her with a blanket, and steps outside to smoke on the balcony. He's so quiet that we can only hear the girl snoozing, and a little cot next to the bed becomes his, without a word of frustration or a trace of annoyance.

Such unspoken, reflexive generosity becomes one of Calum's defining characteristics, and surely, Sophie appreciates it—as much as an 11-year-old can, obviously. She will later, we discover, since the whole film is, more or less, the remembrances of an older Sophie (played by Celia Rowlson-Hall), who lives with her wife or partner and a newborn baby. Some of these memories have been recorded by the video camera that Calum brings along on the vacation, although there's a striking scene in which the father insists that Sophie stop recording a conversation they're having. The rest of the scene plays out on the reflection of the television where the camera's feed just was, and that darkened mirror of the TV gives one the sense of some faded memory.

To explain what's really happening here would be both unfair, because the film does treat that revelation as something to be discovered, and unnecessary, because Wells makes it clear that the entire story is an act of remembrance in at least two respects of that word. We start to notice just how much Calum is teaching his daughter, whether he means to—such as a scene of him showing Sophie how to break free of someone's grasp—or not—how he explains why he and Sophie's mother still say they love each other, even though they are now divorced and have been dating other people.

There are moments of melancholy, fear, regret, or something else just beneath the father's jovial attitude. A particular line, which seems like a throwaway joke of self-deprecation, about Calum being surprised he has made it to the age of 30 sticks with us. The same goes for a scene later when, after Sophie has her first kiss with a boy, the girl's father tells her that, in the future, she can talk to him about anything. What is this story if it's not that conversation continuing well past the point of that being possible?

What else can any of us do in such a situation but remember, try to make sense of the contradiction of knowing and not knowing another person, and hope that, somehow and somewhere, there might be some answers to the questions left hanging? Aftersun lives in that uncertainty, and once we start making those connections, the film's collective emotional impact is staggering.

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