Aftersun - Review *Spoilers*

Aftersun is a perfect name for this film, on a surface level, its a cute name related to skincare on a holiday in Turkey. However, if we dig deep into the depths, it’s the aftermath of a final holiday between a father and daughter. Calum is a young dad who takes his eleven year old adult daughter to Turkey for a small break with just the two of them. Twenty years later, we’re watching Sophie reflect on this holiday, digging through every detail of the home video they made along the way, filling in the gaps between based on her memories, piecing together a portrait of a man who hid all of his pain until it consumed him. Long shots of nothing felt pointless while watching but feel like fading memories while thinking, and I have been thinking. This movie starts with the overview of the home video, as Sophie asks Calum where he thought he’d be now, at age eleven. Absolute dick move from Sophie, just hitting her dad right in the “you failed” section of his brain. We then go to the chronological timeline (I think) of the holiday.

Calum and Sophie check into a passable resort hotel with a TV packed with as many pixels as the brain melting, mind numbing 5G symbol on my iPhone. Calum takes to dancing on the balcony while smoking as Sophie sleeps soundly on the bed, although, it being her memory, I imagine she was pretending, and letting him just be himself for a bit. It’s the first hint we get of a turbulent mind that is desperately trying to be calmed down. This is coupled with his interest in Tai Chi. From then on, we’re taken to the pool a few times, showing neither Sophie or Calum getting involved with many of the other patrons, gathered around the same chemical filled, still body of recreational water. Hints of later confirmed lesbianism are dropped when Sophie smokes Michael on the motorbike arcade machine, leading to a very skimmed over but cute relationship developing as the youthful, temporary memoried, holidaying brain does. Back to the pool (different context) Sophie further smokes males at sport when she pots the spotted balls in pool, leading to them to give her some respect and invite her to later sessions in the resort. This time, the shit pool playing teens are joined by their summer flings who wiggle about in the water while Sophie watches on in coming-of-age wonder, confusion, excitement at the future and slight loneliness. This emotion pops up every now and again throughout the runtime of this feature. We see it as she watches her dad play water polo too.

Hate to analyse but water had some feelings in this movie, both of those times that Sophie sees her future are in the water but anytime we see single shots of Calum in water, they’re bleak and dark. He loses Sophie’s diving goggles, forced to watch them drift into the dark abyss of the deep Turkish seas. A climactic night, leading him to walk into the late night tide completely engulfs him in it’s blackness until we’re left wondering if he’ll ever come out. While we’re analysing, the strobed interludes were a shock to the otherwise warm and soft look of the film. This culminates in Calum and present day Sophie slow dancing, mirroring the last father daughter dance before the end of the holiday. I feel this was a manifestation of frustration of not being able to create a full profile of her father and figuring out why he went away. Struggling to find reasons that she may not have seen or may not even be there to see.

Storywise, we flip through snippets of sweet moments between this eerily real paternal relationship, with a couple of tough and upsetting scenes that add to the intangible tension that only hits when the final title fades on screen. Sophie signs Calum and her up to sing a nice song on stage, Calum refuses and Sophie shakenly yet confidently sings for everyone. Calum apologises for this and the naked sleeping some time later as they stand in Cleopatra's favourite mud. Sophie doesn’t verbally forgive her dad but smears mud on him instead, which we can take as her spreading mud on him, or maybe she’s helping him and comforting him. Who am I to say, I wasn’t there. Calum’s birthday comes along on their final day. Sophie softly wishes him a happy birthday on a bus before being elaborate and getting all the folks at the bottom of the mayan pyramid to sing the copyright free version of Happy Birthday. Calum watches on in horror before we crossfade to Calum crying in his room that night. It was his party and he did cry because he wanted to,but try to smile a bit more Calum, please.

Time for a final roundup of feelings and thoughts. This movie brings a complex view on the mental health of a parent that passes onto the child, living with the consequences of self-inflicted guilt that her love wasn’t enough to keep him around. A flowing memory of a short time that is imprinted in her brain, being kept alive through the factual reels of the home video, as time passes and Sophie’s memory manipulates and fades, she relies on these tapes to keep her on track and remember it all clearly, from the flight there to the flight back. She sits in her dimly lit apartment, scrubbing through the footage, trying to get closure, for who knows how long. The final shot pans from present day Sophie to the memory of her dad, turning off the camera and walking down the impossible hallway into the nothingness. We’re left to piece together the movie like Sophie is left to piece together the memory of her dad. This movie was beautiful, tragic and real. I don’t want to ever see it again but feel an urge to rewatch, like Sophie and piece the portrait of Calum together, neither of us can do that though. At least its fictional and Paul Mescal can continue to exude GAA energy.