I really wanted to see Aftersun when it first came out in theaters. I watched the trailer countless times (both with and without my wife and friends), and thought a lot about it before and after its release. I ultimately missed out on an opportunity to see Charlotte Well’s A24 movie; that is ultimately on me, and I regret that decision.
My journey of putting off the movie about a woman recounting her final holiday spent with her father at a young age didn’t end when the movie eventually made its home video release and subsequent addition to the list of new and recent movies streaming. However, after a long delay and multiple other movies moving ahead of it on my watchlist, I finally watched Aftersun, and wow… Just wow.
Oh, before I get started sharing my thoughts on the 2022 under-the-radar movie, please know there are some major spoilers throughout this piece…
I Held Off On This Movie For So Long Because I Knew It Would Wreck Me
Ever since the birth of my daughter seven years ago, movies with a father-daughter dynamic have affected me in a way a younger version of myself could never even begin to understand or rationalize. That’s very much the case here with Aftersun’s story about Calum (Paul Mescal) and his young daughter, Sophie (Frankie Corio) on a Turkish vacation. Before watching the movie, I had a feeling their dynamic would be at the center of the story and the mysterious conflict, but I didn’t know what it would be. Would something happen on the trip, immediately after, or in the distant future? Would some kind of tragedy befall them and change their lives irrevocably in an instant?
The tragedy that forces an older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) to look back on this fateful trip is never fully revealed (though it is implied to be Calum’s death), but you can feel the young woman’s pain and sorrow whenever her character is on screen.
The Way The Movie Handles Depression Is Astonishingly Accurate
Full disclosure – I have been dealing with depression since my pre-teen days, and I’ve done everything from attending weekly therapy sessions to taking various antidepressants to undergoing a 72-hour psych evaluation at a hospital in college. I’m not saying I’m the biggest expert on mental health issues, but I do know an astonishingly accurate and honest portrayal of depression when I see one. Aftersun tackles depression and anxiety better than any other movie I’ve seen in recent years, which is another thing I really enjoyed about the movie.
There were times throughout the movie where I felt I was looking at photos and videos of myself due to the way Calum carried himself while feigning a false sense of normalcy and happiness. You could feel the weight of his feelings and depression holding him down as he attempted to give his daughter the best possible memories. No wonder Paul Mescal received an Oscar nomination for his performance.
There Were Times I Forgot Paul Mescal And Frankie Corio Weren't Actually Father And Daughter
The strained father-daughter relationship shared by Calum and Sophie was so intense and felt so genuine, there were times I forgot these were two actors in a movie and not an actual father and daughter in a documentary. The subtleties and nuances of their performances, especially whenever together, were magnificent and made an already good movie into one of my favorites in recent memory.
There’s a scene in the movie (which was featured in the trailer) where Calum tells Sophie that no matter what, she can talk to him about whatever is going on in her life, especially as she gets older. It’s this parent-child conversation we’ve seen in all kinds of movies over the years, but this time it feels less like words in a screenplay and more like words our moms or dads would share with us in the waning days of our childhood.
It's Hard To Believe Aftersun Was Charlotte Wells' Directorial Feature Debut
How Aftersun wasn’t nominated for Best Picture and how Charlotte Wells wasn’t honored for her work on the movie is something that befuddles me. However, it’s also hard to believe that this is Wells’ feature film directorial debut, which is hard to grasp considering the amount of consideration, care, and skill she put into the movie. The simple yet complex story tackling everything from mental illness to growing up to the power of our memories has to be one of the best freshmen efforts from a director in quite some time, and I cannot wait to see what she does next.
The Constant Teasing Of Calum's Fate Made Me So Anxious
I’m always down to watch an anxiety-inducing movie, and Aftersun did just that with the constant teasing of Calum’s fate throughout its 100-minute runtime. Throughout the movie, I had this terrible feeling that something bad would happen to Calum before the end credits rolled. The scene where he stands on the balcony to have a smoke while a road-weary Sophie sleeps in their hotel room, the sequence of a drunken and depressed father walking into the sea on pitch-black night, and the moment Sophie drops her expensive diving goggles in the water were just three of the times I thought this was how the story would end.
The way Charlotte Wells was able to tease Calum’s fate while also toying with the audience never felt cheap or in poor taste. Instead, it oddly made me feel more connected to the character and his struggles.
The Aftersun Ending Is Something I'll Be Thinking About For A Long Time
Following the film’s theatrical release, one of my colleagues went into great detail about the Aftersun ending, in which she explained and theorized as to what happened to Calum and how his story wrapped up. In the piece, she broke down elements like the fear of aging and the unreliable nature of memory, which were honestly two aspects of the movie I couldn’t stop thinking about after finishing the movie.
In fact, I’ve been thinking about the movie pretty much nonstop ever since I finished it. I keep going back to the scene where Calum foretells his fate by telling a dive instructor that he probably won’t live to see 40 after thinking he’d never make it to 30 (the movie takes place on his 31st birthday). I’m still perplexed as to what happened to the single father and when it happened, but I guess that’s the beauty of a movie like this.
This Is Definitely A Movie I Want To Revisit... Just Not Right Now
Do I want to revisit Aftersun at some point in the future? Yes, but just not right now. This is a heavy movie, and knowing me, I’ll spend the next few days and weeks dissecting each scene, thinking about every hanging word, and try to make sense of the emotions I felt while watching it. I’ll let these feelings gestate for the time being, and then go back when it feels right.
If you were like me and spent way too much time putting off Aftersun, please know that you can check it out right now with a Paramount+ subscription.
