Review: Powerful father-daughter drama Aftersun will break your heart in half

• After sun
• Written and directed by Charlotte Wells
• With Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio
• classification R; 96 minutes
• opens in select theaters on October 28th

The Critic’s Choice

There are films that don’t hit – that don’t really deliver their intended punch – until your time with them is almost up.

After sun, Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells’ debut feature, patiently unfolds without urgency or worry, confidently building a series of half-formed memories into something solid, something real, over the course of an hour and a half. But when the film’s final moments arrive – in a perfectly edited scene set to a distorted version of Queen and David Bowie’s soundtrack Negative pressureof all the overused songs in the world – After sun cuts you in two with such emotional intensity, such awe-inspiring dramatic power, that I could only sit and fight back the inevitable tears.

A memory game that enjoys actually playing with memory, After sun is joined by thirty-year-old Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who is looking at old camcorder footage of the summer vacation she took with her father Calum in the late 1990s. The grown-up Sophie is looking for something – confirmation, negation, absolution? — about her father, although Wells is appreciatively vague about the truth. Mostly this is a tale of small moments as we watch an 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) hang out with Calum (Paul Mescal), who is so young that she is constantly mistaken for her brother and not her parent.

The relationship between the two is not tense, but is characterized by great distance. Through dialogue and half-overheard phone calls at home, we learn that Sophie lives with her mother, that Calum still has an affection (if not necessarily a romantic one) for his child’s mother, and that this sunny escape is to a cheap Turkish resort an unusually large gesture for the clammy father. As the two hang out by the pool, sip an endless stream of artificial tropical drinks, endure the nightly “entertainment” organized by the hotel staff, and peck and nudge each other’s stories, Wells crafts a carefully measured, lyrical portrait of a connection that is both natural and is unconventional.

Stepping out of the main action from time to time to delve into the digitization of the journey – with certain camcordered moments played back and then repeated by the adult Sophie in her quest to decipher… some – Wells sneaks in just enough ambiguity to startle. Calum wears a cast on his right arm, but is unable or unwilling to tell Sophie how he sustained the injury. And what about those moments when Calum is secluded on the balcony of her hotel room, dancing to an unheard tune? Sophie and the audience must unravel these moments with an innocent curiosity that is both captivating and addictive.

All in After sun feels just as calibrated, from the meticulously accurate ’90s era details — finally a filmmaker has found the courage to use Canadian hip-hop collective Bran Van 3000’s music on screen — to the pretty derelict lots of Sophie and Calum’s vacation estate, perfect for the low-key vacationer who wants adventure without the risk of real strangeness.

The sincerity, nostalgia and touch of family secrets are all held together by two perfect little performances. Corio, a newcomer who feels ripped straight from Wells’ imagination, is achingly pure as is Sophie, a girl on the brink of rebellious puberty who, for the time being at least, wants nothing more than to be bonded to this man she knows only so much .

Mescal, meanwhile, continues to deliver on the promise he made in his breakthrough role starring in the 2020 television adaptation of Sally Rooney normal people. While Calum takes turns babysitting Sophie and engages in a kind of inner struggle that Wells only vaguely defines, Mescal balances a protective parental instinct with deep inner grief. (Incidentally, but neatly, this is also Mescal’s second run in as many years playing a lost soul adrift in a choppy European vacation spot after coming on as a support The Lost Daughter.)

As wonderful as the two actors are, even their tremendous amount of work can’t quite prepare you for the gut punch that’s pouring in After sunThe last few seconds. If I may issue a warning, that’s also a recommendation: Wells made a film so devastating, you’ll thank her for breaking your heart in half.