TMS Movie Review: Aftersun
(A24 / BBC Film)
In the midst of awards season and newly released blockbusters like Ryan Coogler’s Wakanda Forever, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun quietly comes to theaters. There are virtually no big names attached to the small scale drama, with Paul Mescal of BBC’s “Normal People” (2020) as the most famous face in the cast. It’s also Wells’ first full-length feature following three short films previously. The whole movie depends solely on the effort and execution of the storytelling to grab and impress viewers without any star power. And fortunately for everyone on the production team, Aftersun succeeds nicely.
Set sometime in the early 2000s, 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her father Calum (Mescal) spend a week at a resort in Turkey to enjoy the beach and pool together. Frankie is with her mother most of the time, whom Calum is separated from, so the father and daughter tend to share their company on vacation and holidays. Throughout the lowkey visit, we also get future glimpses of adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) reminiscing about her distant father.
(A24 / BBC Film)
Aftersun is already a success to me for achieving two things: making use of a tight 95 minute runtime and crafting a child lead to be the right level of realistically precocious and juvenile, but not too obnoxious. In an era where movies are continuing to test fans’ patience by running over two hours, I will always support shorter runtimes that get straight to the point and don’t waste time. Wells and Corio create one of this year’s best characters and performances by a young girl while boy centered dramas like James Gray’s Armageddon Time and Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans are out this month as well. The writer-director subtly shows us that the family situation in Aftersun isn’t perfect or ideal without spelling it out, and instead opts for a ‘day in the life’ tactic where we see flashes of what Sophie’s and Calum’s histories are like and have to place the pieces ourselves. Mescal is fine as the troubled, yet well-meaning male parental figure of the story and reminds me a bit of fellow Euro actor Hugh Dancy during his earlier career.
While I would have preferred more than three scenes featuring adult Sophie to give the audience a little more substance to how she feels or desires regarding her past, or simply focus entirely on the father-daughter bonding; Aftersun is a nice little picture this autumn and would work well for those who enjoyed Mike Mills’ uncle-nephew flick C’mon, C’mon (2021).