Movies…with a little bit of obscure culture and sports mixed in
Weeping. Sobbing. Sniffling. These were all things I was doing during and after finishing Aftersun (2022). I was in need of a desperate hug after watching this beautifully rendered, holy devastating story made by first time major filmmaker Charlotte Wells
“Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn’t.”
Director: Charlotte Wells
Writer: Charlotte Wells
Starring: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall
Release Date: November 18, 2022
IMDB
Weeping. Sobbing. Sniffling. These were all things I was doing during and after finishing Aftersun (2022). I was in need of a desperate hug after watching this beautifully rendered, holy devastating story made by first time major filmmaker Charlotte Wells. Oscar-nominated Paul Mescal delivers a heart-wrenching performance that is inked in subtlety. Aftersun is a therapy session for those who are self-aware of their own depressive tendencies, yet despite the movie’s overall sadness, the story still manages to find beauty in the darkest of moments.
Calum (Paul Mescal) is a single father taking his 11 year old daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) on a vacation at a less than stellar vacation resort. Across the street is a more upscale destination and the father-daughter duo dance between the opportunities and settings of each.
Sophie, through which the lens of Aftersun is told, is at the brink of teenage adolescence but she still has the unfettered love and adoration for her father. Sophie is about to begin learning about the stresses of life, and she can’t see the weight of life crippling her dad on a daily basis. Calum finds joy in being with his daughter, but outside of fatherhood, he struggles on a level only he knows.
The emotions of Aftersun make you grab the tissue box when the movie flash forwards twenty years showing Sophie grown up sharing a life with another woman. It’s at this moment, through the artistic and personal touch of Charlotte Wells’ storytelling ability, that the audience is slowly lowered into a well of tears.
Sophie has her own life and has seemed to figure herself out, but two decades later, she is still fighting with herself to understand the father she knew, and the invisible man she couldn’t see.
Hints at Calum’s struggle are inserted from the start of the movie. Calum has close calls during seemingly innocuous moments; getting too close to a moving vehicle, standing near the edge of a dangerous balcony, and purchasing a rug that is far outside his price range. There are signs that he doesn’t necessarily care about his well-being or near-future.
In addition to the literal signs in Aftersun, Wells wrote in some symbolic strobe lights. Well, I guess that’s literal too. Throughout the movie Calum is shown in club dancing alone with loud EDM music blaring and strobe lights bouncing off the walls.
The movie allows room for interpretation, so allow me to expand a tad regarding these rave cutaways.
Calum, or people suffering from depression, have the ability to put on a front of calmness that keeps their inner erratic monologue muted. For Calum, he is able to harness this costume of capability through the lens of fatherhood and being with Sophie. However, on the inside, his mind is rattling and his thoughts of hurting himself are thumping. Calum is getting lost in all the noise inside of his head, making everything and everyone around him faceless. He is a man in a crowd flailing around, lost in the hustle and bustle of life happening all around him. He is dancing to his own beat, and it’s not necessarily a positive one.
Then elder Sophie finds her way into this symbolic dance floor and finds Calum dancing. They make eye contact, and the quiet understanding of what took place washes over Sophie, and the viewers, all while Queen’s Under Pressure adds a deeper layer touching our ears. The dichotomy of Sophie and Calum’s vacation ending with them dancing to Under Pressure and the grown-up daughter touching her own acceptance and understanding of her deceased father’s mental health is enough to evoke emotion simply by thinking it. It’s outstanding filmmaking. It’s unreal story telling. It is a beautiful representation that we can connect with those we love even after they’ve passed.
I’m not emotional. You’re emotional.
The initial father-daughter relationship between Sophie and Calum is trusting and surprisingly deep. Sophie isn’t afraid to be open with her dad, and she wants to capture everything they are sharing together. Sophie even shares they story of her first kiss with Calum, which is a true fire sign to her dad that she is indeed growing up and the fatherhood he has known and found comfort in is about to change.
Sophie has a line in Aftersun that hits far too deep for those who have suffered some mental health struggles in the past.
“Don’t you ever feel like… you’ve just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and feel tired and down and… it feels like your organs don’t work, they’re just tired, and everything is tired. Like you’re sinking. I don’t know, it’s weird.”
Everyone who has had a bad day can relate to that. A day where you didn’t want to get out of bed, or talk to anyone. A day where you got things done and accomplished what you’ve set out to do but return home to feel empty and unfulfilled. Imagine what Calum was thinking hearing her daughter say this; speaking to him directly without even knowing it.
Watching Aftersun has symptoms, must of which involve leaking from the eyes and moments of deep contemplative silence. Moments from the movie will linger with you, but there is one visual that sticks with viewers of the movie more than others.
The doors. The freaking doors. The final doors we see Calum walk through and the doors to dark the dance party. The door to closure, both for Calum in a physical sense and Sophie in an emotional sense. These doors are seemingly anonymous, but for those who have watched the story unfold, these doors are immediately recognizable.
Aftersun was the final movie of the NBR 2022 Best-Of List I had not seen. I am going to be ranking the 11 movies the organization deemed worthy in the coming days, and spoiler already, Aftersun is going to be high on that list.
And one last thing before closing this out. What a few years for women filmmakers coming in and making outstanding and emotional first feature films. Aftersun is outstanding in every sense of the word, and Celine Song made the critically and publicly adored Past Lives (2023). I mean fuck yea, let’s have more first time filmmakers reach for Kleenex.
Aftersun is currently streaming on Paramount+/Showtime.
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