Rating: R
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 minutes
Director: Charlotte Wells
Quick Impressions:
Watching Aftersun is like sifting through your own memories—except they’re somebody else’s.
Adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) is reflecting on the last vacation she took with her dad (Paul Mescal). And we’re trying to make sense of her memories along with her.
Watching, I kept waiting for the bad thing to happen because at many moments, things could take a dark turn. So I followed Sophie through her recollections of this vacation, and nothing bad happened…and then nothing bad happened…and nothing bad happened. In almost every scene, nothing bad happens on this trip.
But something bad happened.
As Sophie looks back on this innocent time with enhanced adult understanding, she’s clearly asking herself, “Why did that bad thing happen?” Is the answer buried deep in this vacation, hidden, waiting for her to understand it now that she’s an adult herself?
That’s what I took from the film, though possibly I misunderstood. It’s the type of movie that demands a second watch. During its last third or so, I felt slightly confused, never completely sure if some memories were out of order, if some were imagined, if some were fantasy. But when the film ended, my assumption was something terrible happened that she’s never understood. But it didn’t happen on that vacation, and Sophie wonders what hints she failed to pick up on during that vacation because she was a child at the time.
The Good:
The film has a charming realism. It begins with eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) interviewing her dad with a camcorder. This spoke to me immediately because I used to interview my relatives all the time. I’d ask probing questions and jot the answers in a notebook labeled Psychology. And when I got my hands on a camcorder, I would frequently zoom right up in people’s faces, again asking questions if possible. I like talking one on one. I’ve always just assumed I was weird, but now I’m wondering if that’s a common middle school hobby. You’re on the cusp of adolescence, trying to figure yourself and everyone else out.
I watched this film because Paul Mescal is nominated for Best Actor, but I was pretty impressed by Frankie Corio. Her performance seems so natural that I found myself relating to the character, identifying with her, as if I were eleven myself. Then I’d realize, “No Sarah, you’re a forty-three year old woman.”
Possibly what drew me to Sophie is that she’s always hanging around hotels in unorthodox ways, which I often did because my dad worked in hotels.
In so many scenes, Sophie seems like she’s vaguely in peril which is compelling, too. Nothing bad is happening, but you can imagine how something bad could happen in the future. But that’s life, isn’t it?
I thought about our oldest child a lot, too, remembering how excited he’d get when he was little when both sets of his parents would do an activity together. It didn’t matter what. The time together was the point.
Paul Mescal’s moments often made me uncomfortable. Children are so fragile. But how can you keep from breaking them if you’re broken yourself? It’s heartbreaking that Calum wants to give Sophie things he can’t. All she really wants is to be with him, always. But maybe that’s one of the things he can’t give her.
It’s a sad movie.
Almost every character introduced ends up having a positive interaction with Sophie and her dad. Imagine reviewing positive memory after positive memory, searching for answers about something unknowable.
Best Scene:
The best part of the movie is when Sophie is wandering around by herself after karaoke. So many awful things could happen to her. I like the intensity of that. Every potentially dangerous thing lurking around the corner comes to a head here…and then works out nicely.
And then we realize there is a danger when Sophie is left alone, but it’s not to Sophie. She’s just fine.
Best Scene Visually/Most Oscar Worthy Moment, Paul Mescal:
I’m just a sucker for unusual camera work. I especially like reflective surfaces being used in a surprising way. (Maybe these kinds of shots are a little heavy handed, but I just love stuff like this.)
There’s a wonderful moment when Sophie is interviewing her dad, and he makes her turn off the camera, which has been connected to the TV in the hotel room. She asks him a very sensitive question (innocently, without realizing that it will upset him). When he answers, the camera is off. But the TV is also off. So we still see his face in the television screen, only it’s just his reflection. As he answers her question, we watch his face in the darkened screen and also (sometimes) in the mirror next to the TV (on the very edge of our screen). It’s quite arresting.
What he says here is simple enough, but it’s extremely personal and gives us a hint about why he finds celebrating his birthday so difficult.
Best Scene about a Persian Carpet:
I like both scenes featuring the Persian carpet! (Normally I have a Best Action Section, but why should I try to come up with one of those when the part I like is the stuff about the Persian carpet?)
The Negatives:
Usually movies don’t confuse me. This one did…a little bit.
At first, I couldn’t decide if what we were seeing after a certain point was fantasy, if a moment was shown out of order, or if that moment was deliberately vague. I was uncertain for a while.
I know how Aftersun made me feel. I think I had the emotional sense of it. But if you forced me to write out all the events in order, I would have to admit that I’m a bit confused about the ending.
Based on the way the movie made me feel, I’m assuming the director is trying to create that experience for the viewer. So I’m nearly positive a certain event happened. I just don’t know for sure if it happened during the vacation or at some other time. My guess would be this thing happened not long after Sophie went home to her mother. But I’m not completely sure because the late scenes are quite different from the rest, and so as I watched, I wondered, “Is this a fantasy sequence?” At the end of the film, I concluded it was not, but the movie left me with this odd feeling of unknowableness, which I would assume is the director’s intention—to cultivate that feeling, I mean. Possibly, I am just stupid, not able to feel certainty about the events depicted onscreen. I feel like I know what happened, broadly. Unless I’m very wrong, I know what happened to trigger all of these intense musings about this vacation. But the movie…
If you watch it, you’ll see what I mean. A second viewing would probably clear some things up since now I would understand what I’m watching a bit sooner.
I’m not sure I exactly like the film because it’s so sad—which is a ridiculous reason not to like something, but there you have it.
This is a strange movie because in some ways, nothing much happens. And that’s always how it is in life—until something happens. The thing happens, and then you’re left wondering, “Why did that happen?” And you try to think about events leading up to it, and, you know, nothing much was really happening…
It’s interesting how often he puts sunscreen on her. That only protects you from the sun. At night, there are still dangers in the world.
Overall:
I’d like to watch Aftersun again. I didn’t plan to write a review initially because I thought, “That made me so sad.” But then I thought, “I’m so sad. I’d better write a movie review to cheer myself up a little.” Paul Mescal is good in his Oscar nominated role, and so is Frankie Corio.