Aftersun

I almost never watch films twice but 'Aftersun' was a rare case where I absolutely had to. I don't think this film can be fully appreciated on first watch. I saw someone suggest that after you watch it your mind will go back to little moments and re-evaluate their significance, and it will. But watching it again with the full picture gives the entire movie a different perspective. The second watch is almost like watching a different film.

Kids in films, particularly in lead roles, can often be very annoying. That isn't an issue here. Frankie Corio gives one of the most likeable child performances I can ever remember seeing. Her chemistry with Paul Mescal was amazing. I read that she wasn't privy to Mescal's solo scene rehearsals, so that she wasn't fully aware of what his character was going through, much the same as her character Sophie wasn't. That's brilliant.

Something that was very apparent on second viewing was the significance of the music in the movie. The first time through I remember thinking, "there are a lot of good songs in this movie". On second viewing you realise that every song used is telling a story. It's telling you what is going on, but like most people in the real world, we just hear a banging song and nod our head to it. Then later on we reconsider its true meaning.

Finally, this film has one of the beast movie endings I can remember seeing. It's classy, heavy and thoughtful all at once. It's done in a beautiful and somewhat haunting way that will stick with me for a long time. 9.5/10.

I am only writing this review so I can remember later on why I only gave this movie a 6. I understand that this movie has an extremely powerful and intimate presentation of the relationship between a reckless father and his young daughter. I noticed the intricacies and nuance that the film makers tried to convey throughout. I just did not connect with the film at all. I imagine that this film hit some people hard but for me I was quite bored with it by the end. I have to simply be true to my own feelings and opinions from a film and conclude that to me, it is simply ok. Don't take my rating too seriously because I can genuinely imagine somebody else watching this film thinking that it is the best thing they ever saw.

This film crept up on me. I was worried it was a gimmicky art film (plus at the beginning the dialogue was hard to decipher) but as the film went on I was swept up in it - purely down to Paul Mescal's and Francesca Corio's performances. Achingly beautiful. I was crying without realising and also on the tube home - the tears just kept coming but it was nothing to do with me.

Alison Willmore from Vulture at New York Magazine perfectly articulated what I felt :' It's about wanting to reach across time, and to meet a loved one in an impossible space where, for once, you're both on the same level, and you can finally understand them for who they are - or who they were.'

Aftersun is a film that I wasn't sure I understood when the credits started rolling. Then, as I sat and thought about everything I had seen, I came to believe more and more that it's kind of genius.

What the movie lacks in overt substantive plot it more than makes up for in authenticity and subtle placement of character-building images and dialogue. In the moment, these often feel like tangents and the overall picture isn't clear.

While it can make for a frustrating first viewing, the clarity that comes with the film's final shot suddenly puts everything into perspective and I felt an overwhelming flood of emotion for the two central characters.

Suffering happen more often than not in silence, and it's the cumulative of this film's many quiet moments that drive home one of the most effective, nuanced messages of compassion that I've seen all year.

This is a masterpiece of subtlety, arguably slightly to a fault, but it's refreshing to see it in the age of "hammer over the head" messaging in movies that we're currently living in.

The one thing you can say about the film Aftersun is that it's not afraid of subtlety. It's human realism at its core dealing with themes such as childhood, fatherhood, responsibility, class, and vulnerability. It's the opposite of dramatic yet it keeps you engaged and glued to the screen through out as you care about the characters despite the simplicity of their day to day interactions. Paul Mescal plays Callum, a young father to an 11 year-old somewhat precocious girl named Sophie. The film in my opinion is about a father who tries his best to maintain a rock like mask to convey strength and stability for his daughter while being emotionally vulnerable underneath. Occasionally throughout the film that mask slips a little bit as Callum struggles to bear the responsibility of being a dad at such a young age and while facing his own personal troubles. At the same time his daughter, getting older and wiser, starts to explore the world of adolescence while on holiday where she also begins to notice her father's vulnerabilities. It's a sensitive film and one that leaves you enthralled and attached to the characters on a deeply human level even if that dramatic colonel doesn't pop the way you might except.