AFTERSUN

UK, 2022, 102 minutes, Colour.

Paul Mascal, Frankie Corio.

Directed by Charlotte Wells.

Aftersun has won many awards and great critical acclaim. However, it should be said that this is a film for an arthouse audience, an audience who wants to contemplate the themes that are dramatised as well as explore the characters. It is not a conventional drama and certainly not an action show.

Irish actor, Paul Mascal, won awards for his performance in the series, Normal People. He received an Oscar nomination as Best Actor for his role here, as Callum, verging on his 31^st birthday, separated from his wife but friendly, taking his 11-year-old daughter for a week’s holiday to a resort (very British and filled with British tourists) in Turkey.

However, the audience is jolted right from the beginning with a lot of handheld camera work, and some swirling collages of images. And, while the pace of the film settles down, there are glimpses of video of father and daughter, of some flashbacks, and, some flash forward to the present. The action takes place mainly in the late 1990s.

Callum is very agreeable with his daughter and she with him. However, as the film progresses, we realise that Callum is frequently depressed, some moments with a gloomy expression, sitting silently, sometimes weeping, seen going into the ocean at night and submerging himself. But, he wants to relate well to Sophie (a very bright and active performance from Frankie Corio). He suggests all kinds of activities each day, the pace of the film being day by day of the holiday, some audiences may be envious of the holiday, others wishing that it would, perhaps, get a move on. There is swimming, there are meals, there is scuba diving, there is the pool table, at which Sophie is adept.

So, the film, the first by director, Charlotte Wells, who wrote the screenplay, reminiscing about some of her past, gives us often detailed portrait of father and daughter, but the father remaining somewhat enigmatic.

At the end of the film, we realise that the daughter, 20 years later, her father’s age during their holiday, is remembering, looking at video footage, interpreting.

A number of commentators have suggested that there is a gay subtext to the film, that Callum may be a gay man, the separation from his wife, wanting to set up a business with a friend, and they list various hints throughout the film of something of his gay gaze. And, perhaps, he has AIDS. Some other reviewers and commentators have written developing this theme as well as indicating how depression rather than sexual orientation is the theme. In interviews, Charlotte Wells herself has not indicated the gay subtext.

With these interpretations, it means that Aftersun is a film to be mulled over after the audience has seen it.

1. Awards and critical acclaim?
2. The setting, the end of the 20^th century, the Turkish resort, filled with British tourists, the accommodation, the pool, the attractions and entertainment? Karaoke, scuba diving…? The musical score and mood?
3. The story from Sophie’s perspective, in her 30s, remembering her father? Real and imagined? The adult Sophie, her situation, the same age as her father in her memories?
4. Sophie, 11? Her parents separated, living with her mother in Glasgow, her father in London? Contacts? Going on holiday with her father, travelling the bus, the arrival, the accommodation, settling in? The beds and the room? The video, the clips with her and her father? The different situations? And kept for her memories?
5. Calum, turning 31, his marriage, separation, phone calls with his wife? His relationship with Sophie, wanting to become important in her life, the holiday together? His cheerful attitudes, yet his moments of depression, the smoking, walking into the ocean and submerging, lying on the bed, weeping…?
6. The happy sequences of father and daughter together, day by day, meals, swimming, the club, the entertainment, the karaoke (and his refusing to participate), the scuba diving and Sophie losing the helmet, time together?
7. Sophie, her age, looking at the tourists, the boys, the game of pool and her skills, friendly, joining with them later, the boy her own age, the driving game, later meeting, talking at the pool, the kiss? Sophie on the verge of coming of age and adolescence?
8. The portrait of Sophie, an exuberant young girl, her life, wanting to know her father, the experience of the holiday together? Leaving him behind? 20 years later and the footage?
9. The portrait of Calum, father, the touches of depression, the scenes of the nightclub, the lights and the dancing, his farewell to Sophie, in going through the doors into the club?