Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun begins with pixelated DV camera footage of a father and daughter, Calum and Sophie, on holiday in the sun, a picturesque escape from the everyday and mundane lives of our straight-talking Scottish protagonists. Spooling out upon both our cinema screens and the now adult Sophie’s home television, we are given glimpses of smiles, sun and beaches, rewinding further and further back as we travel to the past. The materiality of the handheld DV format – the quality of so many family home movie collections c.1995 – immediately evokes a sense of nostalgia, memory and (potentially) melancholy, a lens through which Sophie now looks back upon her past. At its core, Aftersun is a deceptively simple, but in reality incredibly rich family drama concerning a troubled father’s efforts to give his daughter a holiday she won’t forget, even if that means departing with what little funds his precarious employment allows.
Wells’ storytelling is dreamlike and symbolic by default, the tactile nature of the screen fragmenting before our eyes into snippets of future, past and present, as well as dreams/nightmares. Often devoid of context we only fully understand by the closing credits, images of Calum (Paul Mescal) performing Tai Chi, reading self-help books on meditation, and drinking pint after pint of cool lager, showcase a sensitive but potentially imbalanced man. Filtered through the perspective of 11-year-old Sophie (a captivating performance from one-to-watch newcomer Frankie Corio), the warning signs around Calum’s wellbeing are dismissed as eccentricities, or simply ‘dad being dad’. Knowing that an adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) is replaying the footage of this sunny holiday with a pressing, scrutinising eye, we can’t help but find ourselves heartbroken in those moments where her younger self tests the limits of Calum’s stability and sense of self-worth, as she tries to break free of parental constraints to enjoy the company of older teenagers staying at the resort.
I really don’t want to give away too much about Aftersun, other than to say that it is a beautiful, heartfelt and incredibly poignant gut-punch of a drama that immediately announces Charlotte Wells as an important new voice in independent cinema. Its performances from Mescal and the young Corio are masterfully effortless, leaving no doubt that these two are father and daughter, dependent upon each for emotional support, fun and guidance. A coming-of-age story coupled with a thought-provoking take on depression and loss, I can’t see Aftersun not ranking amongst my favourite films of 2022.
Notes from the Multiplex 