Directed by : Charlotte Wells
There's this feeling, once you leave where you grew up. that you don't totally belong there again.
Spoilers ahead... (plenty of them)
Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) goes the memory lane decades ago when her younger 11 yr old self (Frankie Corio) went on a budget vacation to Turkey with her dad Calum (Paul Mescal).
Most of the movie we see is through the point of view of Sophie, either the video recordings from her handheld video recorder or her mind camera as she herself points out at one stage in the movie. At start the story would give a feeling of its just another father-daughter bonding with a coming of age based story that we have seen many times. And the way some scenes go on for ages specially the one where Calum smokes cig at the hotel room's balcony at night leading to little dance steps all alone, makes you wonder 'oh no, maybe this is a pretentious movie'. I had the same feeling, but even this pointed out scene has a deeper meaning and as layer by layer the movie unravels, you would be surprised to see how much Aftersun tries to talk about topics that we don't discuss much or dismiss off too easily, i.e mental illness or suicidal thoughts.
The beauty of the movie is that it tries not to tell what's going inside the mind of Calum directly, how he is always pretending to be happy which at times Sophie catches out but she is still too young to interpret that her father is actually having killing himself thoughts. There's many visible red flags, how carelessly Calum crosses a road with a bus coming his way, him standing on the top of his hotel room railing and the direct obvious one where you actually sense he would do it this time when he goes all alone late night towards a beach.
The first clear hint we get about the depression he's going through is when Sophie asks him what did he do at his 11th birthday, which Calum denies telling in front of camera and thereby Sophie lets him tell to her mind camera and he reveals the incident that suggests he had a very shaky/troubled childhood. What I love about this scene is how its framed, using the tv screen to show Sophie having this conversation with her dad on the bed, so we don't get clear cut look at his expressions. This attempt to make sure scenes never get melodramatic is visible throughout the movie.
Another beautiful shot is when Calum is opening out his cast (probably that was his last attempt at suicide before coming to this trip) in the bathroom, with a wall in between acting as barrier while on the other side Sophie on a chair is reading some magazine while asking him some silly yet interesting questions. She is totally unaware how irresponsibly Calum is cutting the cast and thereby hurting himself while he calmly answers her questions.
Sophie re-visiting this trip on her own 31st birthday suggests that Calum may have ended his life after the end of the trip even though no official answers are given but you can put clues together to assume that. Why he did it ? Maybe the depression boiling over since the childhood got to him, being a dad at 19 he must not have been ready to take the responsibilities, followed up with a broken marriage leading to divorce, a recent breakup with partner that he was going to setup a cafe with.. In short, there was no happiness in his life and nothing good in near future looked like happening either, so maybe he felt this little trip gave him so much joy, it's right time to finally finish this life.
He was clearly suffering in all departments, whether it was love or money as he couldn't afford a luxury room, nor he could afford that 'buy anything band' one of the teenager gifts to Sophie on her last day of trip, and also we see him ask Sophie run throwing some food on stage to avoid paying for the dinner, and lastly we saw him pick a random thrown cig from road while walking fast towards the beach. In a way you could say he was careless in spending money, for instance that rug he buys from the carpet store or the drinks he orders at the resort, who knows how much role all this played in him becoming a broke. Also, at one place he tells a guy that he isn't sure how he made it to 30, and how he feels alien to the thought of reaching 40 someday.
One thing about mental illness/suicidal thoughts is that its hard to know when the person is having it, most won't disclose it to even their loved ones. Just look at the conversations Calum has with any of the people throughout the movie, no one even once asked him 'Are you okay?' suggesting that they couldn't see through him, which even Sophie (understandably for her age) couldn't too. I am not sure if his wife knew or not, the phone talk they have suggests she maybe did, and he probably would had told it won't happen again.
The coming of age angle of Sophie is well shown without the usual cliches through the interactions she has, with the guy at arcade game with whom she even shares a kiss much later and doesn't hesitate telling her dad about it, or the pool game she plays with the teenagers. Also, all the silent scenes where we see her just observe, whether its the girls talking about foreplay in the bathroom, or the teenagers partying and having fun around. Interestingly, in one conversation, a teenager girl tells her that 'all boys are gross' and adult Sophie is actually a lesbian. Again, kudos to the director handling the curiosity side of Sophie with utmost care.
There's this scene where Calum tells Sophie to do what she likes, whether its to bring boys home, do drugs or any way to enjoy life but she must always tell him about it. It was an odd thing to hear him say, to ask daughter be very open when he himself isn't, and who knows how long he will live. Or maybe at that particular moment he felt he will outdo the urges to die and see his daughter grow up.
The rave blink flashes throughout the movie was irritating for me, its at the right end when these shots make full sense. The anguish and sympathy adult Sophie had for Calum - firstly why did he go away, and secondly why could she not do anything.
The soundtrack including the background score is just as spectacular, every time it adds more meaning to the narrative. The fun moments are beautifully shown through the famous tracks 'Macarena' and 'Tubthumping'. My personal favs however were -
• 'Tender' by Blur that plays in background and suits Calum to the tee, a song that's about fighting the demons inside hoping to survive and find the peace.
• 'Losing my Religion' by R.E.M. I will go on to say that I prefer the anguish tone of Sophie version over the original one. Its used at the karaoke night where Sophie isn't happy to see Calum not come up to the stage to sing with her. He is ofcourse having one of his worst moments of the trip eventually leading up to that beach scene.
• Under Pressure' by Queen and David Bowie, this is one hell of a way to end the trip on (before that airport scene). I feel this track may never ever be used in a much better haunting deep way it is here, how it connects with the rave visuals of adult Sophie and that hug young Sophie is giving to her dad not knowing this is a moment she will remember forever in so many different ways, with the lyrics 'this is our last dance'. Perfection!
Performances of both leads, Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal is splendid. Frankie plays Sophie as a girl who for her age is curious, asking silly questions but she's intelligent enough to understand things like the scuba mask drop where she immediately feels sorry knowing it was expensive and her father would be upset at it.She's not oversmart either even though she gets philosophical occasionally like the mention of how that sun is above our heads all the time no matter if we are together or not.
In short, she strikes a perfect balance of what you would expect an actor of her age, not too matured and not too childish. Love how we see her angry with her dad at karaoke night, and then next morning without any tantrums or something, she forgives him during the mud sequence.
Paul Mescal had a much tougher role, to his credit he pulls it off so well, the art of pretending 'everything is good' while you are actually dying inside is efficiently handled by him. He's someone who is in pain and trying to be happy so that his daughter Sophie has a good time at the trip. We rarely get too much of closeups to examine his actions or moods. Its only when Sophie confronts him with direct questions, we get to see Mescal show off more. Even at the rug scene, I couldn't read what was going inside his mind.. was he thinking only about should I buy or not, or the symbols on the rug he wanted to buy had some deep meaning that made him get little lost.. I would love to know what that rug was implying since later on we see that rug at the house of adult Sophie.
The reaction Paul gives when Sophie makes everyone wish him birthday song was really heartbreaking, not a surprise the director immediately cuts to the first and only time in entire movie Calum has a breakdown all alone in room.
Aftersun is easily one of those movies that stays lingering in your head for days after you have watched it. Even though its a movie on depression, the topic is handled by the debut director in a manner that it never becomes a tough watch, yet it will hit you hard when its over. If not for the slow pacing, I would have given it a perfect 10. May not be really everyone's cuppa of tea, but I am glad it worked for me so much despite my initial reservations.
My Rating : 8.5/10
