Children notice everything that their parents do, especially when their parents are misbehaving.  Parents tell their children not to swear, only to do it themselves.  They smoke, drink and do drugs even after warning their kids of the dangers of those things.  Every instance where a parent exhibits bad judgment or is hypocritical, a child is there to bear witness.  Children don’t understand everything they see, and certain behaviors are mysterious without the life experience to process them.  Sometimes their underlying meaning becomes clear later in life.  Until that time arrives, however, all we are left with is puzzling memories that we know are significant but don’t know why.

In Aftersun, Sophie (Frankie Corio) spends two weeks with her father Calum (Paul Mescal) on vacation in Turkey at a modest resort.  The bus ride there is interminable, and when they finally arrive their reservation is no longer available.  They make do with a one-bedroom room provided, with Calum taking the kiddie cot.  While Sophie sleeps, Calum smokes on the terrace and sways to the music inside his head.  Since the story is told from Sophie’s perspective, this scene is from her imagination.   Sophie knows her dad smokes, so her mind fills in a gap as she reflects on these events twenty years later.  As the story unfolds, there will be other instances where Sophie imagines things that she assumes happened.  Aftersun reminds us that memories are tricky things, sometimes accurate, sometimes fabricated whole cloth.  In Sophie’s case, she seeks to understand what happened on that vacation, and the question becomes whether she can trust her memories to reveal the truth.

Over the following two weeks, Sophie and Calum casually pass the time relaxing at the pool, eating and talking about things important and trivial.  They participate in a few group activities, like diving or going to a mud bath, but they rarely leave the resort.  When Sophie asks if they can go paragliding, Calum says that she’s too young.  Sophie, after Calum admits he has no job and soon runs out of money, realizes that her father is broke.  This doesn’t matter because she loves her father and the time they spend together is more important than him paying for something frivolous like singing lessons.  Sophie’s awareness of his financial situation embarrasses Calum, and he handles it as best as he can.

As their vacation progresses, it becomes clear that something is off about Calum.  Underneath his friendly, easygoing personality lies a deeply troubled man.  When Sophie turns eleven (and he turns thirty-one), her question about what happened when he reached her age turns grim.  There are regular instances where Calum expresses a devil may care attitude about himself.  He walks in front of a moving bus, dives without a permit and cuts the cast protecting his broken wrist.  At the diving trip, Calum ominously states how he never thought he would see thirty.

Since Sophie is still a child, she reacts as a child normally does to these kinds of things.  She dismisses them as more instances of her father acting strange.  His obsession with Tai-Chi (his “Ninja moves”, as she describes them) is just something dad does.  Her mother’s instance that she calls home to report in is just mom being mom.  Her parents aren’t together, so she doesn’t understand why her mom insists on talking to Calum, or why he tells her that he loves her.  She thinks adults are just weird, as all children do.  Besides, there are older teenagers at the resort she can hang out with who are far more interesting.  As she observes them drinking, smoking and making out, she is interested in them in a way she’s never experienced before.  She’s not sure whether she’s attracted to the boys or the girls, but their bodies fascinate her.  Eventually a series of late-night experiences provide the answer to a question she never knew she asked.

As Sophie’s transformation into a teenager rapidly progresses, Calum becomes increasingly unstable.  He does his best to keep a stiff upper lip but refuses to enjoy things that should be fun.  Even the most innocent things, like singing karaoke or the guests singing him happy birthday, set him off.  Calum is obviously suffering from depression, but Sophie is unable to interpret the signs.  On the last night of their vacation, Calum dances while Sophie records him on his video camera.  This recording, coupled with her memories, finally provide insight to a thirty one year-old Sophie that tragically arrives too late.

With Aftersun, writer-director Charlotte Wells has crafted a brilliant debut film.  Against the languid backdrop of an extended vacation, she creates an intimate portrait of a father and daughter that gradually builds to an emotionally devastating climax.  Until that point arrives, the movie proceeds in an unassuming way, with each scene imperceptibly building upon what came before.  While Sophie’s coming-of-age narrative unfolds, Calum’s depression reveals itself in ways that are unmistakable to the audience but that she is unable to process.  The movie’s themes finally come into view when their vacation ends, revealing a story of lingering sadness, regret and the unreliable nature of memory.  Throughout the movie, Wells trusts the audience to put the pieces together like her heroine.  Wells’ direction evokes an artist constructing a story through a series of rich tableaux, a style reminiscent of Julian Schnabel and Wim Wenders.  Aftersun is a beautiful and haunting film, one that unapologetically forces you to confront its themes head-on.  Highly Recommended.

Analysis

Sophie notices everything her father said and did during their vacation.  She remembers all of the times he was kind to her.  He sleeps on the child’s cot provided by the hotel so that she can have the twin bed.  He takes an interest in her life, asking about school, how her relationship with her mom is, and so on.  He also makes a point of letting her know that she can talk to him about the things she will experience as she grows older, like dating and drugs.  Calum mentions several times that he’s willing to pay for things like singing lessons, to which Sophie reminds him that she knows he doesn’t have the money to do that.  (This is likely the real reason why he says she can’t go paragliding.)

The realization that his daughter is fully aware of his financial difficulties leaves Calum genuinely hurt.  Based on what the movie shows, Calum loves Sophie very much and tries to be a good dad.  He respects and cares about her, but he’s weighed down by his negative opinions of himself.  He doesn’t have a steady job, so he can’t fulfill his role as a provider.  Sophie has accepted this, but Calum regrets that he couldn’t afford a better vacation spot, or for them to enjoy more activities while they are there.  The vacation itself, along with Calum’s purchase of the expensive Turkish rug, are grand gestures intended to make up for his perceived failings.  For her part, Sophie is happy just to be spending time with her dad.  Calum, however, doesn’t believe that being present is enough.  This triggers his depression, which leads to the behaviors that Sophie witnesses but doesn’t initially comprehend.

There are numerous examples of Calum saying or doing something that would be concerning to an adult.  Sophie is a child, however, and categorizes those events as “Dad is moody”, or “Dad’s acting weird”.  For example, he’s obsessed with meditation and does Tai-Chi daily.  Calum tells Sophie’s mother that he loves her, even though they are separated.  (It’s unclear if the two were ever married.)  He admits that he gave up on the idea of opening a cafe and has no concrete plans for his future.  Calum regularly tells Sophie to introduce herself to the other guests at the hotel.  He’s also unconcerned with his physical well being.  He not only cuts off the cast protecting his broken wrist, but when he pierces his skin he lets blood drip freely from his arm.  He walks in front of a moving bus, causing the driver to blare the horn at him.  He spits toothpaste at his reflection in the mirror.  He confides to a boat hand that he never thought he’d live to be thirty.  As an adult observer, it’s obvious that Calum is troubled and likely suffering from depression.  To Sophie, however, her dad’s behavior is odd but she lacks the context to be worried about it, 

Several scenes depict crucial events that older Sophie wishes she had handled differently.  The first is Calum’s admission that when he turned eleven, his parents forgot it was his birthday.  His mother dragged Calum over to his father and ordered him to buy Calum a toy.  This event points to a troubled childhood, one that left Calum so damaged he cannot return to Edinburgh.  (As someone who also endured a miserable childhood, I had no trouble sympathizing with Calum.)  Calum tries to counterbalance the dark state his memories put him in with Tai-Chi and meditation, but self-help is not a substitute for therapy and medication.  Any memory can send Calum spiraling at a moment’s notice.

The next crucial scene is when Calum refused to do karaoke with Sophie.  Given what the movie has shown up to that point, it makes sense that he would rather do anything else than sing REM’s “Losing my religion”.  A series of incidents throughout the vacation have put him into a dark place, and he would rather do anything but sing a song that speaks directly to his state of mind.  Sophie tries to goad her father into joining her by going solo, but Calum refuses to participate.  Twenty years later, with the benefit of hindsight, Sophie probably regrets her behavior.  Unfortunately, she didn’t understand back then that her father was in a bad place and that her actions only made him feel even worse.

On the last night of their vacation, possibly their last night together, Calum begs his daughter to dance with him.  She declines, so Calum dances by himself.  She laughs while recording his silly “moves” with his video camera.  While “Under Pressure” plays on the soundtrack, the scene at the resort is cut with images of Calum dancing in strobe lights.  As the older Sophie fights through the crowd, the music changes so that only the voices of Freddie Mercury and David Bowie are heard.  When Sophie finally reaches her father, she yells angrily at him and struggles to hold onto him.  Eventually, she loses him and the scene shifts back to the airport where the two had said their goodbyes.  Calum turns off the camcorder, walks down a hallway and opens a door with strobe lights on the other side.

This intense and highly emotional sequence deftly brings together all the themes of the movie.  Before this point, the movie had mysteriously included brief shots of Calum dancing to strobe lights.  Coupled with the movie’s final images, the implication is that Sophie deeply regrets not dancing with her father.  While Sophie is able to revisit that moment on video, the images haunt her.  She feels guilty not over letting her father dance alone, but also witnessing his depression first hand for two weeks and doing nothing about it.  In the imaginary strobe light scene that plays in her mind, she’s angry at her father for leaving her and also at herself for not recognizing the state he was in.  Twenty years later, through the videos and her memories, Sophie finally recognizes the clues she ignored.  Unfortunately, her awareness came too late for her to help her father. She can connect with him through her memories, but she can’t go back in time and save him.

Aftersun paints a vivid portrait of the myriad emotions felt by those left behind after a suicide.  When Sophie turns thirty-one, she’s achieved the birthday as her father on their trip.  The connotations of that milestone force her to revisit what was presumably the last time she was with her father and try to make sense of it.  Twenty years later, Sophie is still angry at herself for missing her father’s telltale signs of depression and likewise with her father for not telling her how he felt.  She’s also saddened at being unable to help him when he needed it and still takes his passing hard.  Her memories and the videos, as vivid as they are, only provide fleeting glimpses into who her father was.  Even though Sophie shared nearly every waking moment with her father for two weeks, she never really understood him.  Her newfound awareness only makes her feel worse, because she wasn’t able to decipher the clues that she believes were there all along.  In this respect, Sophie is being too hard on herself.

First, some of the clues are highly suspect.  Since the movie is told from Sophie’s perspective, she is imagining any scene where she wasn’t present.  For example, she never actually sees her father smoking, so she assumes he does it while she is asleep.  After the disastrous karaoke episode, she never saw her father between the time he went back to their room until much later.  Knowing his propensity for self-destructive behavior, she envisions him picking up a cigarette off the street and walking into the ocean.  In both instances, Sophie’s mind is actively filling in the blanks, providing an explanation for what he apologized for the following day but never explained.  Sophie certainly saw enough of her father’s behavior to draw conclusions, but her mind is also fabricating memories.  

Second, Sophie was experiencing a sexual awakening in the middle of the vacation.  Part of the time she acts like a child, mirroring what Calum says and does, uses childlike phrases like “porkie pie” and plays video games.  At other times she’s a girl tentatively exploring womanhood.  She hangs out with the teenage boys and girls at the resort, observing them kissing and drinking.  She wears her bikini to dinner and kisses a boy the night when her father storms off.  She insists on putting suntan lotion on her back by herself.  Given how Sophie is a teenager, it’s understandable she would pay more attention to the changes happening within herself and not her father.

Finally, the movie underscores how we never really know anyone, even our parents.  Twenty years after that vacation, all Sophie has to help her understand him are imperfect memories and moments captured on video.  Together, they create a window to the past, but the picture they form is incomplete.  There may have been signs that pointed to the action he ultimately took, but Sophie will never really know why he did what he did.

In addition to its fascinating screenplay, Aftersun also features two captivating performances.  Paul Mescal’s performance is an understated masterpiece.  Throughout the movie, he walks a fine line between behaving normally and being slightly off.  Mescal gives us subtle glimpses into Calum’s depression but never oversells the character’s state of mind.  While watching Calum, I was reminded of how people say how they never expected someone to commit suicide, and how they seemed completely normal.  Mescal wisely trusts the screenplay and Wells’ direction to reveal his emotional state gradually.  Calum’s depression always lurks just below the surface, occasionally rising up to make its presence known, then subsiding as if it were never there.

As Sophie, Frankie Corio captures the essence of being a tween so convincingly that I wondered if Wells had picked her off the street and began filming her.  Her acting is so authentic and effortless that it never once felt like she was acting.  If the most difficult thing an actor can do is be comfortable and natural in front of the camera, Corio knocks it out of the park.  Her performance of Sophie is one of the best child performances I’ve ever seen, and speaks to how great of an actor she will undoubtedly become in time.

Lastly, congratulations to Charlotte Wells on such an incredible debut.  I’ve written at length about her sublime script above without mentioning her direction.  On one level she captures the timeless nature of an extended summer vacation, where the hours pass lounging by the pool, staring at the sky and talking about inconsequential things.  On another level she imbues every scene with the personality and perspective of its characters is masterful.  I don’t know what her directorial inspirations are, but her style reminded me of Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) and Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Until the End of the World).  Wells amazingly fills her movie with stolen moments that she uses like a detective solving a case.  Like the best detectives, she knows that even the most trivial events can be critical to understanding whodunnit.  With Aftersun, Wells reminds us that everything deserves our attention, because we never know how things will ultimately end.