Aftersun (2022)

Simon Boccanegra · February 13, 2023

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A woman recalls a Turkish vacation 20 years earlier with her father (Academy Award nominee Paul Mescal), who struggles with financial pressures and mental-health issues from which he attempts to shield his perceptive daughter. The debut feature by Scottish writer/director Charlotte Wells explores memory, loss, and the struggle toward greater understanding. Also starring Frankie Corio.

I don't like to spoil too much about plot and destination in the first post of a thread (I figure if people keep reading further down, they have prepared themselves), but I really loved this one. I wish it had been nominated for more things besides Mescal's beautifully modulated performance as the father. I have never seen the television series Normal People, but I made note of Mescal last year as the young man Olivia Colman befriends in The Lost Daughter. That was another "vacation movie," come to think of it.

Aftersun is a subtle movie with some stretches that are superficially banal, and even what is overtly dramatic in it (friction between the father and daughter at a karaoke night) is underplayed, but it creeps up on you and ultimately is affecting in an unusual way. Much is done by implication. I feel so certain I know what happened after this vacation, almost as if I saw the scenes, but I have read other interpretations. There is a lot to consider just in the expressions on the face of the adult version of the daughter (Celia Rowlson-Hall), in the strobe-lit rave scenes that appear at intervals.

I am interested to see Charlotte Wells's future work. This seems the kind of very personal debut movie that could be hard to follow up, but I shouldn't get too far ahead. In the meantime, I would highly recommend it.