Aftersun, the directing debut of Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, is an astonishing feat, a multi-layered subjective chronicle of the last vacation a young girl had spent with her loving, if troubled father.
Webbs greatest achievement is in making makes personal memories and inner thoughts visible, visual, and impactful (not an easy task) She’s captured the uncapturable, finding the words and images to describe feelings that are beyond our rational comprehension.
Wells has channeled autobiographical elements into an emotionally touching story with universal dimensions.
The protagonist Sophie (Frankie Corio), 11, is on holiday with her dad, Calum (Paul Mescal), at a time in the 1990s, when the Macarena was at its cultural apex.
It’s made clear that Calum isn’t with Sophie’s mother anymore. He moved to England; they stayed in Scotland. This trip to Turkey, which Calum can barely afford, is rare opportunity for father and daughter to be together.
The novelty: we’re not watching these events as they were, but as they’re remembered – by an older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) at a nightclub or a rave or inside her own brain.
We also see her play and replay an old VHS tape from the trip, trying to pinpoint some hidden truth that Aftersun never reveals. At one point, we see the ghostly imprint of an adult Sophie in the television screen’s reflection.
All we know is that this shared time between Sophie and Calum marked the end of a relationship that’s always been special if also fragile.
Brilliant child actor Corio reflects quiet desperation; she smiles small. It’s the hesitancy of a child who wants to show her dad that she loves him, but doesn’t quite know how.
Sophie is always documenting, snapping Polaroid photos and videotaping Calum while she quizzes him. When he tells her he doesn’t want to be filmed, she says she’ll “record it in my little mind-camera” instead.
But though the camera does not lie, all the video footage in the world can’t give her the answers that she desperately needs. The lean texts shows casually and randomly Calum’s offhand yet remarks to other characters.
