Aftersun, Adolescence and Adulthood
By Lauren Crookston
It is a rare and wonderous feeling to come out of the cinema feeling so incredibly impacted by a film that you feel as though your perspective may be forever altered. When you are rendered speechless and feeling hollow after exhausting so much emotional energy. It is rarer, still, to find yourself relating to a film on such a deep and personal level, that you know it will stay with you forever.
Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells’ debut film, Aftersun, has received overwhelming praise since it premiered at Cannes in May 2022, and it is far from undeserving. Aftersun is a somewhat autobiographical reflection of a holiday to Turkey that Wells took with her father when she was young. It is conveyed as such to us by having the protagonist, Sophie, watching back the videotapes they had taken whilst on the trip, and revisiting the memory as an adult with a child of her own. In doing so, Wells has created a film that feels so personal, that it would feel voyeuristic if there wasn’t an inherent familiarity in every frame.
The attention to detail is what makes this film feel both nostalgic and intimate. The setting of a European resort catering to British tourists is one that is ingrained into so many of our memories: comforting and mundane and so individualistically defining. The sounds of family members breathing in their sleep in a shared hotel room, the moments of aggravation when spending extended uninterrupted time with someone, the applying of aftersun at the end of a day at the pool are as much a part of us as they are of Wells.
Aftersun toes the line of having being both subjective and objective which is evident in the narrative - a combination of camcorder shots and Sophie’s own memories - as it is in the perspectives of the central characters. On one hand, we see the holiday through the eyes of a pre-pubescent girl: too old to play with the kids, too young to drink with the teenagers and completely uncomfortable in her body. On the other, we see a young dad on the cusp of his thirties, taking a break from the feeling underwhelmed and unfulfilled in adult life. Both are at significant junctures of their life that affect their outlook and experiences, and thus this comes across so vividly in their interactions as it does in the cinematography.
Amongst the film’s many layers, we also see a great undercurrent of grief in its most genuine form. The film is not only a mournful love letter to Wells’ father but also to childhood: to resort arcades, to cheap hotel entertainment, to playing boardgames to pass the time, to the exhilarating first taste of freedom, to simplicity in life and relationships. This is present in both central characters: one who has already felt the loss of being young, and one who is yet to experience it - but also in adult Sophie’s reminiscence of her own childhood.
The performances given by Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio as the Scottish father and daughter are equally brilliant. Mescal, who has shown his understanding of a complicated character previously as Connell in Normal People, plays the father with the distinct charm that dads have, whilst subtly delivering a man who is profoundly struggling. Frankie Corio, at thirteen, seems to have a full understanding of the delicacies of being a young girl, as she concurrently plays a child as a child is: silly, mischievous, somewhat rebellious and focused on little else than having fun.
Aftersun is a film that truly encapsulates the understanding we gain of our parents as we age into adulthood, and with that, the subsequent detachment from who we were as children. Yet simultaneously, Wells manages to emphasise that although our perspectives adjust it does not undermine the emotions we felt - as they will shape the person we eventually become. It shows the duality of understanding our parents as parents, whilst not necessarily understanding them as people and the internal turmoil that can arise from that as we find ourselves in their shoes.
Aftersun is a beautiful film that is devastating and loving and completely humble in its profundity. Charlotte Wells has broken onto the scene of up-and-coming indie cinema, and if any of her future endeavours channel half as much heart, intimacy and meaning as Aftersun, then they are masterpieces in the making.