AFTERSUN (2022)

 

Written & Directed By: Charlotte Wells

Cinematography: Gregory Oke

Editor: Blair McClendon

Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Sally Messham

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 them as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't...

This is a movie that presents a happy picture but hints at dismay and other things going on, on the sideline but they are never explained.

So throughout we get hints of something dismaying, but also it’s never quite explained to us. Which allows the audience to feed into or put whatever they feel into the story and make it more personal.

As the film stays what it presents itself as. A look at a father and daughter spending a holiday together at a resort. They bond and have a loving relationship. Except towards the end, they get into a bit of an argument and separate.

Where this will lead we aren’t quite sure but in the end seeing them together again we know they are alright.

In the film, we are never quite sure what happened after the horrific kiss. as we see the future somewhat and it appears we are looking back at memories and videos. We never quite are sure why she is watching these videos or what she is looking for or exactly what happened.

So Essentially it feels like we are watching moments and how they affect us though we have no idea where they are going so it is a bit abstract for us to make up the past and the future. As we watch all we know is that present.

Almost a snapshot, but it is a beautiful film with inventive shots at times. Such as instead of focusing on the actors focusing on their reflections on various objects. Ultimately the film is heartbreaking. It also fills you with a kind of joy.

Remembering when you loved it you loved your kids and everything was innocent and kind of perfect while the outside world looms. It’s one problem that you will have to deal with and encounter. For the time being you are in your own little world with your family and loved ones and that is all that matters 

They are mistaken for being siblings rather than father and child. Though that does show how young he is to be a father and the pressures that might present with little disappointments lien the resort not being as grand as advertised 

The film revels in these ambiguities and it’s another film that benefits from it is mostly taken from a child's Point of view not fully but in pieces. This helps to explain that some of the camera work and angles are a bit obscured. 

This also allows us later on or after for us to realize that it’s impossible to totally reconstruct a memory perfectly. And that the daughter here can’t ever fully come into focus 

And it offers the universal wonder of looking back at certain moments in our lives and re-evaluating them. We're what we remembered, better or worse we’re their clues other things were going on. 

The film offers a happy ending but no closure

Grade: B