Aftersun (Charlotte Wells, 2022)

I appear to be in a distinct minority where this film is concerned. Many reviews describe it as evocative, poetic, emotionally resonant. And I see why some folks would feel that way. Aftersun is mostly notable for all the usual things that Charlotte Wells doesn't do. A memory piece about an adult woman's experience of a vacation in Turkey with her father, Aftersun implies a great man narrative possibilities but refuses any closure or, for that matter, any definitive meaning. We understand that young Sophie (Francesca Corio) is a child of divorce, and that she doesn't see her father Calum (Paul Mescal) very often. So in terms of connection, there is a lot riding on this trip, and the weight of those expectations naturally creates the conditions for disappointment.

Wells also makes it clear that what we are seeing for the majority of the film is deeply subjective, the recollections of an adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) at a particular juncture in her life, and so of course the slights are magnified, working retroactively to explain her sense of abandonment. But those current-day circumstances are minimal at best. Why does she keep envisioning herself and her father at a club, dancing under a strobe light? When we catch a glimpse of someone in Sophie's bed, is that her partner? Do they have a kid of their own? So much in the present day is unexplained, whereas the past, as Sophie recalls it, is richly detailed. 

These are all interesting choices, since Wells' elliptical narrative pushes us away from her characters even as the inchoate longing of young Sophie pulls us in. What makes Aftersun a bit frustrating, however, is that at certain key moments, Wells engages in very obvious signposting, perhaps in order to make sure we aren't totally lost. When Sophie is hanging out with older kids at the resort hotel, and she watches them making out in the pool, it's all too clear that the 11-year-old is having her first stirrings of sexual desire. When her dad refuses to sing karaoke with her (the rather on-the-nose "Losing My Religion"), it's all too clear that for her it represents all the ways that her father has let her down over the years. And for that matter, when she spies Calum on the balcony swaying to music, it's the mark of his interiority, something she will never be able to access.

Is Calum dead? Did he abandon her? It's quite evident that, as a young man who unexpectedly became a father too early, he is trying to figure out who he is, and this is vexing for Sophie because she knows who she needs him to be. The experience of the vacation is a potent one for Sophie, not just because of the time with her father but because she is on the cusp of maturity, caught between little-kid comforts and young adult desires, and so regardless of the actual events of this trip, Sophie enmeshes her father within this moment of emotional confusion, as the man she wishes would "see" her and the person from whom she must also pull away.

So there's a frustrating push and pull at work in Aftersun. Some of Sophie's feelings are clearly universal, especially where dads and daughters are concerned. This emotional generality seems to allow Wells to skip over many of the details and operate in archetypal mode. But in Aftersun's most specific moments, Wells is also employing fairly typical cinematic shorthand, as if to make sure the larger picture doesn't escape us. More than once while watching Aftersun, I thought about one of my favorite films, and the best film I know about the troubled relationship between women and their fathers. In Su Friedrich's Sink or Swim, the filmmaker explores the fragmentary nature of emotional memory, primarily by constructing the film from small vignettes that, in total, provide a clear, pitiless image of her distant, judgmental father.

I can't speak to Wells' own memories or how what we see in Aftersun is specific to her autobiography. But there is a sense that she is attempting to distance herself and the viewer from those memories with an impressionistic formal approach. It doesn't quite work, because what we are seeing is still very raw, suggesting that unlike Friedrich, Wells hasn't attained enough distance from the material to really sculpt with it. As a result, Aftersun seems stranded in a no man's land between confessional poetry and Claire Denis / Barry Jenkins style art reverie. I admire Aftersun quite a lot, especially as a debut film. But by trying to move in close and stay far away, it ends up stuck in the middle.