Aftersun Review: A Portrait of Love Through Reflection

Against the lush landscape of Turkey’s Aegean coast, a father and daughter steal away moments of lightness from the looming shadows of the past and future. Charlotte Wells’ directorial debut Aftersun thoughtfully traces eleven-year-old Sophie’s holiday with her father, played empathetically by Paul Mescal, exploring the rippling effects of unspoken troubles just beneath sunny exteriors.

Wells crafts the simple but profound story from her own childhood recollections. Sophie and single father Calum spent their away days swimming, snorkeling, and playing arcade games at their basic resort. Yet glimpses of deeper worries emerge, from Calum’s meditative pacing to his guarded discussions of career changes. Sophie, becoming her own curious person, notices more than she understands.

The acclaimed director first captured attention with intimate shorts exploring family and memory. In Aftersun’s moving premiere at Cannes’ Critics’ Week, she proves a masterful shepherd of subtle, soulful performances from Mescal and young Frankie Corio as Sophie.

Through the grown Sophie’s nostalgic lens, their bittersweet bond gently comes into clearer focus, reminding us that no vacation can outrun life’s complexities indefinitely. Against scenic shores and lingering shadows, Aftersun resides in memory as poignantly as the summer that shaped its characters.

Sophie and Calum’s Summer Solstice

The blistering coast of Turkey in the late 90s provides the setting for Sophie and Calum’s bittersweet week together. Just turning 11, Sophie takes a holiday to Turkey with her father, Calum, in an attempt to spend some quality time bonding during their brief summer break.

Calum books them into a budget beach resort near the shores of the glistening Mediterranean. The hotel is nothing fancy—a simple complex with cramped rooms and noisy construction always threatening to puncture the peace. But for Calum and his daughter, none of that seems to matter, as long as they have each other and this slice of freedom away from everyday life.

Each morning, they wake to the calls of seagulls and a sunrise spreading orange across the sky. Over plates of fruit and tea, they plan their days, whether it’s snorkeling in the calm coves, scrambling up dusty mountain trails, or lounging lazily by the pool. There they spent their afternoons chatting and laughing, occasionally joining in resort activities like water aerobics or pool volleyball.

In the evenings, they dry off and head to the hotel’s modest restaurant, conversing over meals that taste even better for the company. Afterwards, it’s down to the sandy beach to skip stones under the stars or wander the night market stalls. Then it’s back, tired but content, for Calum to read to Sophie until her eyelids droop with sleep.

We learn Calum and Sophie’s mother are separated, with Calum’s living situation undefined. So this short escape provides a rare chance for daughter and father to bond closely without daily stresses pulling them apart. But even in paradise, change is imminent, and responsibilities wait just beyond the horizon.

Sophie and Her Dad

Eleven-year-old Sophie spends her week-long vacation at a Turkish resort, getting to know her father Calum in a deeper way. Played by newcomer Frankie Corio with tremendous nuance, Sophie observes the world with the wide-eyed curiosity and blunt honesty of a child, yet also shows glimpses of perceptiveness beyond her years. She clearly dotes on her father, and their bond is loving, but moments reveal she can sense Calum’s struggles even if she doesn’t entirely understand them.

When Sophie accidentally breaks her scuba mask, for example, she nervously mentions the cost, worried it may cause her father stress. It’s a small line, but it shows an awareness of his situation that Calum didn’t expect.

In other quiet scenes away from their activities, Corio’s expressive eyes convey Sophie working things out as she watches Calum in the distance. Her whole demeanor suggests a girl absorbing life’s complexities and inching toward the insights that will come with time and experience.

Calum is played to perfection by Paul Mescal, using only the subtlest of gestures and expressions. He clearly adores Sophie yet seems weighed down by existential weariness and financial woes only hinted at. When chatting with his daughter, Calum keeps things lighthearted, but his smiles don’t fully reach the eyes that betray deeper troubles. Mescal imbues Calum with a sadness that hangs in the air like the Turkish heat. He seems to be wading through “wells of quiet anguish,” as one critic put it.

Though doing their best to enjoy their trip, Mescal and Corio underneath communicate a relationship with their own quiet strain of melancholy. The real depth of understanding between father and daughter can only be unlocked once Sophie reaches a point where she too has become a parent, viewing these memories from that new perspective.

The Beauty of Imperfection

Gregory Oke’s exquisite cinematography imbues Aftersun with both warmth and unease. His camera lovingly caresses each sun-soaked scene, from the golden beaches to the shining waters, capturing the Turkish holiday resort in all its vivid splendor. Yet within these summery frames there are cracks—figures seen from strange angles or through mirrors, blurring the lines between presence and absence.

Like the imperfections that develop naturally over time in a cherished photograph, Oke purposefully destabilizes our vision. Calum is often viewed off-center and fragmented, a suggestion glimpsed at the story’s edge. Through doorways and windows, he appears, always just out of reach. This subtle instability mirrors the uncertainties of memory—how presence distorts into the mist of recollection.

As in looking back on faded snapshots, the audience is left questioning what is forgotten and what remains. Oke’s cinematography acts as the shimmering veil between Sophie’s experiences then and how she processes them now. His use of reflection also allows for multiple views of the same scene, just as memory can be refracted through different stages of life.

By framing characters partially or obliquely, there is room for interpretation where facts cannot be clearly discerned. This ambiguity draws us deeper into not just the character’s emotions but the very nature of recalling past relationships. Oke’s skewed compositions mirror how memories are reformulated over time. In Aftersun, imperfections become the pathway to profound emotional truth.

Exploring Memories and Growing Up

Sophie’s trip to Turkey with her father was a happy time in her childhood, filled with swimming, eating ice cream, and simply enjoying each other’s company. As an adult looking back, though, she sees more to the story. Reviewing old video footage and photos sparks realizations about her dad that her younger self couldn’t grasp.

We get the sense that Sophie now understands that her father struggled with things like loneliness, financial strain, and ill mental health. As a child, she likely perceived some of this but lacked the life experience to fully comprehend. Revisiting their vacation through grownup eyes brings new insights. Memories are recontextualized, revealing untold depths beneath cheerful surfaces.

Father and daughter are related through closeness, yet separated too. Divorced parents meant distance between family units, leaving dad striving to build business ventures and a stable home for future visits. These efforts seem to be partly attempts to heal sadness within. For the daughter, distance made time together precious yet transience strange; she looks back, yearning to know this pivotal person better.

Their bond displayed care, yet fragility too. Calm exteriors mask internal tumults, like worries about responsibility or providing. Children absorb such tensions unconsciously. The film captures that dissipating innocence through shots like a Polaroid, developing cloudily between past clarity and present uncertainties. Memories are probes into lives that formed us yet hold continual mysteries.

Sophie’s retrospective perspective grants deeper empathy for struggles a child could not fully comprehend. Her father’s care warrants appreciation, but maturity allows her to see beyond simplified past views to the complex realities underneath. In revisiting formative relationships, truths unfold that remain unspoken yet profoundly shape our growth into understanding adulthood.

A Film That Will Resonate Through the Ages

“Aftersun” lingers long after viewing, its touches of authentic humanity seeping into memory. Charlotte Wells’ achievement is to craft a narrative of such sparse subtlety that it echoes within. Under the sunny surface of father-daughter vacation times, an underexposure to emotion gradually emerges.

Wells understands that drama need not be shouted but can be implied through the minutae of lived experience. It is in small gestures and fleeting glances that a relationship’s true nature quietly comes to light. Calum’s care for Sophie is evident, yet so are the invisible burdens he shoulders alone. The delicate tracing of their bond across changing tides of feeling yields poignancy through the patience of storytelling alone.

Some works transcend through craft to become greater than the sum of their parts. “Aftersun’ is such a film, its impressions lingering long after the final images have faded. Great art springs from a deep understanding of the human condition.

By prioritizing subtlety over superficial sensation, Wells taps into core truths about love and loss to which anyone may relate. Her debuts will surely endure, not only as one of the finest of its year but of its decade, for the mature beauty of their reflections on life through a father’s and daughter’s eyes. “Aftersun” is a film of the heart, and for the heart.