Review: Aftersun

Imagine the way a window cracks before it breaks – slowly, and long after it has been dealt the blow that eventually shatters it. Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun deals in moments of the same calibre of afterwards-ness.

It’s an intimate father-daughter story – with Paul Mescal as Calum, and Frankie Corio as his daughter, Sophie – of a summer holiday to Turkey. A relatively uneventful trip, the narrative itself is uncomplicated. Instead, it is the things left unsaid that charge the film with emotion. While Calum teeters on the edge of breaking point, Sophie teeters on the edge of childhood. The film explores both of these moments from the side-lines, lingering on subtle expressions and pauses in conversation.

Like a sunburn, pain comes after the fact, and, though it feels like we’re watching the film in real time, we are, in fact, revisiting 11-year-old Sophie’s memories of the holiday through the eyes of her all grown up, now a mother herself. Wells plays with perspective, utilising reflections and mirrors in the cinematography to confuse the realm of the recorded and remembered. Sophie’s meditations on a relationship that no longer exists shape the film, comprised of flashbacks and dreams and, only occasionally, the present day.

We’ve seen Mescal play tortured and charming before, as Connell in Normal People, but Aftersun sees him bring to life the tribulations of young parenthood in a way that is utterly heart-wrenching. He far from overshadows his co-star, the young Frankie Corio, however. Her home-video moments seem extraordinarily organic; her shy smile in the presence of the older kids all too familiar; her understated expressions of emotions genuine. The relationship between the two is one that appears so natural that it’s often easy to forget they’re acting all. We see the pair of them bored, silly, on each other’s nerves. We see them understand each other so deeply, and then again, not at all. It’s one of the truest accounts of family – of its simultaneous distance and closeness – cinema has seen for a long time.

Sun soaked, sepia-toned, and soundtracked by the likes of Queen, R.E.M., and Blur, Aftersun is nostalgia at its best: uncliched, tender, familiar. It is gorgeous, thoughtful, and truly haunting – it’s one of those films where, even days after watching, sadness sits heavy in your belly. For a film so simple and introspective to be so powerful is a rare feat, so it is no overstatement when I say that, with her debut feature, Wells has delivered us masterpiece.

Image credit: Twitter @aftersunmovie