Review of Aftersun, directed by Charlotte Wells

Considering what I do for a living, it would be impossible to not hear about Aftersun, especially after Paul Mescal landed his Oscar nomination for the movie.

He didn’t have much of a filmography before this movie, so I’m not surprised that this was his breakthrough role. He is, indeed, brilliant within it and I think he deserved that Oscar nomination. But I didn’t think of watching the movie in the year after its release, instead choosing to fill my time with other things throughout the days and nights.

I had finished my work for my internship on this day, and because it’s remote, I had the chance to sit down and do whatever I wanted. So instead of me actually going to do something productive for school, I opened my MUBI account and scrolled through. Then I saw Aftersun and decided it was time. I had no idea wha tit was about, but I decided to take a leap of faith and watch it anyways.

Before I start rambling, let’s get into the review.

A reflection of a father’s trip with his preteen daughter before they become estranged.

We begin the movie with Sophie, who is eleven and leaving from Edinburgh. She’s going on holiday with her father Calum, who no longer lives in the same city (he’s based out of London) after separating from her mother.

Sophie is visiting him in Turkey, and she takes along a handhold camera, and the footage of what she takes on that little camera is actually put into the film in certain scenes. While she’s spending time with her father at the resort, she also meets other kids slightly older than her, getting into the nicks and crannies of what it means to be sexual.

At the same time, Calum is depressed and is struggling with money, and he doesn’t want Sophie to notice this throughout their holiday together. So he hides it, and the two act like nothing is going on at all.

When she’s not around her looking, he does Tai Chi, reads self-help books, and smokes to try and clear his head of the troubles going on in his life and head. Despite it being more obvious to us as the viewer, Sophie doesn’t really that her father is not happy.

We get hints of a rave party throughout the movie, which is actually a moment from the future involving how Sophie, as an adult, tries to get closer to him but fails. When she does reach him, he falls out of her arms.

A crack in the facade happens when Sophie loses an expensive scuba mask in the ocean. Calum is upset, but tries to hide it. Sophie notices despite this and tries to comfort him.

Calum then tells the diving instructor he’s surprised he made it this far, and probably won’t make it to the next decade. Sophie and he go to a rug vendor, he finds a rug he likes, but is put off of the cost. Despite how high it is, he buys it anyways. The next scene is them going to karaoke note, and Sophie asks Calum to sing with her.

He says no, and she sings alone on the stage. She refuses to go back to the room with him and hangs out with the older teenagers, and she kisses a boy her age by the pool.

At the same time, Calum goes to the beach and submerges himself in the dark water, and when Sophie comes back to the room, she finds her father naked in bed and passed out. The next day, they go to mud baths, and Sophie serenades him with a song.

We then flash back to the night before, when the nude Calum sits alone in the room, sobbing, with letters to his daughter all around him. This is the last day of their holiday, and they dance together one last time before they go to the airport the next day. Calum leaves Sophie to go to her mother, and he waves.

The movie cuts to her adulthood. Sophie is married with kids, the same age as her father, and she has his rug in her apartment.

Calum is nowhere to be found—I took this as an implication he might’ve not made it considering this is a rumination on how she might not have noticed the signs back then. In this time, Sophie is reflecting on the trip and trying to figure out what had happened to her father.

Overall Thoughts

This was such a gorgeous movie, and, if we’re going to be honest, I think it’s one of my favorites now. I can’t believe I took this long to watch the movie, but I’m glad I watched it now.

The imagery and cinematography is gorgeous throughout, and I thought the tension was so well balanced for it being a pretty quiet movie.

There is so much sadness in this movie, and while it is seeping with melancholia, it still reimagines how movies can represent depression and its impacts on people’s lives, especially when it comes to how they interact with other people. Watch it if you haven’t already!

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