Aftersun [DVD]

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In an early shot we hear Sophie's steady breathing, asleep in the foreground, while on the balcony behind Colum labours through tai chi exercises - while smoking! The deeply troubled Colum is reading about meditation and tai chi. He's at loose ends, between girlfriends and jobs. Through Sophie's description of her fatigue the camera shifts to show his face registering a far more profound exhaustion.

A moving film about a girl reminiscing on a holiday to Turkey taken with her estranged father 20 years prior. The use of music is terrific, the two central performances are very touchingly delivered (Paul Mescal and the young Frankie Corio). It is one of the films of 2022. The fact this is Charlotte Wells' debut feature is nothing more than astonishing. She delivers massive assurance and confidence in direction, which pushes the narrative forward very tenderly as the girl (Sophie) tries to reconcile her relationship with her father Callum in two separate timelines. When a creator or creator faces a story with autobiographical elements, there is always the risk of falling into narcissism, when the memories invoked and especially the way of exposing them, are only interesting for the one who writes or films them and the nostalgia they generate is not produce resonance with the reader/spectator. Not everyone is Annie Ernaux, Elena Ferrante or Woody Allen or Steven Spielberg or even Joanna Hogg, to go to a more related style. And Charlotte Wells clearly isn't. Main Slate". Film at Lincoln Center. Archived from the original on 15 August 2022 . Retrieved 4 October 2022. Aftersun" is a slow build to a climax that left me openly weeping, to the point that I had to sit in the theater for a bit after the end credits were over just to compose myself.Aftersun was distributed in Austria, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Latin America, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom by Mubi and in the United States and Canada by A24. [19] [20] It was released in the United States on 21 October 2022 and in the United Kingdom on 18 November 2022. [21] [22] Aftersun". BFI London Film Festival 2022. Archived from the original on 29 September 2022 . Retrieved 20 November 2022.

Now, today I can't even imagine how saddening it was for him at those times and it wasn't even at his hands. Delicately unravelling the story of the two characters as they spend a holiday together in the 1990's. Scene by scene, we are given clues into Calum's mental health, and how he's subsequently battling with depression.

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. (less) Theirs is a relationship to cherish and envy, the film’s mood increasingly poignant and elegiac as the holiday draws to a close.Clothes, colours and music combine to create a vivid sense of time and place, and there’s a haunting, ambiguous closing sequence. It’s marvellous. Mubi’s extras include a commentary from Wells and an entertaining Q&A with her and the two leads. At their last supper Colum pays for a polaroid snap of them together. While Sophie wistfully wishes they could stay at the resort forever we watch the photo slowly developing, firming up to clarity, a miniature of the slowly revealing montages we have been absorbing. The film was released for video on demand in the United States on 20 December 2022, [23] and was later made available to stream on Mubi on 5 January 2023 in countries where Mubi distributes the film. BBC Film, BFI & Creative Scotland present, in association with Tango, a Pastel/Unified Theory production Distributors:

While it can make for a frustrating first viewing, the clarity that comes with the film's final shot suddenly puts everything into perspective and I felt an overwhelming flood of emotion for the two central characters. I'm always happy when I see debut feature's from new filmmakers, Charlotte Wells is the newest addition to that list. After Lynne Ramsay and Ruth Paxton, here we have another brilliant Scottish Filmmaker with her feature debut "Aftersun" produced by Barry Jenkins and Adele Romanski. The story revolves around Sophie and her father Calum, a divorcee who must care for his minor daughter while coping with loneliness and mental health. Grater, Tom (20 April 2022). "Cannes Critics' Week: Jesse Eisenberg's 'When You Finish Saving The World' To Open 2022 Selection". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 20 April 2022 . Retrieved 23 May 2022. I will go against the tide with AFTERSUN and say I don't think it's a great movie. Written and directed by Sophie Wells, AFTERSUN tells the story of Sophie (Frankie Corio) reflecting on a summer holiday with her father (Calum, played by Paul Mescal) 20 years before. She reflects on a few key moments from the holiday while trying to reconcile the difference between her father when she was 12 years old and the father she has come to know since.

Halligan, Fionnuala (21 May 2022). " 'Aftersun': Cannes Review". Screen Daily. Archived from the original on 23 May 2022 . Retrieved 23 May 2022.

I also believe that his saying "I love you" to Sophie's mom, that made her confused and curious could well have happened if, say, their marriage had ended because of his depression but there was still caring and love. Eleven-year-old Sophie from Edinburgh takes a summer holiday to Turkey with her loving 30-year-old father Calum, who moved to London after having amicably separated from Sophie's mother. Sophie records the holiday on a MiniDV camera, the footage of which is interspersed throughout the film. Over the course of the holiday, Sophie befriends and observes older British teenagers at the Turkish resort, who engage in and discuss sexual and romantic activity. She also meets with and plays arcade games with a boy of her age named Michael. Calum is dealing with occupational and financial struggles and exhibits signs of depression and detachment, which he tries to hide from his daughter, keeping up a façade of contentment during the holiday. During his time alone on the holiday, he is seen engaging in Tai chi patterns and reading self-help books; he is also shown smoking, a fact he hides from Sophie. For example, on first viewing one wouldn't know the dark-haired woman dancing is the the adult Sophie, whose memories of a holiday with her father 22 years earlier make up the narrative. That dance montage recurs several times and at the end. On the last night of the Turkish holiday young Sophie declines her dad Colum's invitation to dance, but we see her adult version dancing and then the girl herself. Charactreristically, even when he's dancing with them he is dancing alone. Secondly, kudos for Charlotte Wells as she cleverly registers emotions though it is never explained in dialogues. In fact, very little is explained in this atmospheric film. I loved the staging of a particular scene, Sophie takes a small glance through the keyhole as she watches girl "hand job" gesture while she brags about it with her friends. So many things would have gone wrong here but i appreciate Wells for drawing a line and keeping things delicate throughout the runtime.The director Charlotte Wells offers us a morose autobiographical story where point of view, subtlety and dead times combine against her intention to convey the protagonist's nostalgia for a lost father and paradise and the inevitability of not having understood him on time. A film where the tensions between child and adult perspectives, between naivety and understanding, between experience and loss are only latent. Even though it is not the same case at all, I remember the times as a kid I closed the door on my dad because he would come home late from work. That because he would promise me to come home early. Daniels, Robert. "Writing Inside Out: Charlotte Wells on Aftersun". RogerEbert.com. Archived from the original on 18 October 2022 . Retrieved 16 January 2023.