With a surname like that, maybe a lot was going to be expected of this extraordinary first-time feature director. Charlotte Wells’ delectable debut movie has floored audiences all over the world, beginning with its premiere this May in the Critics’ Week at Cannes, which is where I first saw it. It is film about the overwhelming power of the past and its terrible, tragic inaccessibility; a film about a father-daughter relationship achieving a poignant new intimacy at the very moment it has to be relinquished. The title elegantly gestures at something understood only when it has receded into the past, when its heat has cooled, and when some balm is needed.
Aftersun features Paul Mescal and nine-year-old newcomer Frankie Corio as Calum and Sophie: a Scottish guy who, some time in the 90s, has come on a package holiday trip with his kid, from whose mum he is now separated. It’s a summer trip in a budget resort, a sunshine break that is also a kind of farewell – although Sophie does not exactly grasp that. Maybe Calum doesn’t either. Father and daughter amiably get along with no perceivable tension or drama. Calum good-naturedly goofs around with Sophie, who eye-rollingly tolerates his embarrassing dad-dancing at the disco. But one night Calum goes off on his own, stricken by a guilt and an overwhelming love that he can’t properly show her.
