Let the glow from this gem warm your heart
Aftersun (12A, 102 mins) Verdict: A brilliant debut HHHHH
ECLIPSING many more lavishly funded pictures, Aftersun was one of the treats of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
There is no conventional linear narrative. Rather, we are made to feel like privileged spectators over the course of a pretty uneventful Turkish holiday sometime in the 1990s, watching the tender relationship between a young Scottish dad, Calum (Paul Mescal from the TV hit Normal People, successfully concealing his Irish accent), and his 11- year- old daughter, bright- as- a- button Sophie (newcomer Frankie Corio, giving one of those debut performances that go down as absolute marvels of naturalism, whether they presage a successful career or not).
Aftersun is a debut of sorts, too, for writer- director Charlotte Wells, who has previously made only short films. I hope she goes on to other things, but I certainly can’t say greater things, for this is a gem of observation, absorbing from beginning to end.
Calum is divorced or separated from Sophie’s mum and he has moved to England to find work, so the holiday is a rare opportunity for father and daughter to spend quality time together. Nevertheless, they have an easy, loving rapport, which isn’t really threatened by anything that happens in Turkey, yet incrementally Wells drops hints of profound sadness in Calum’s life, as well as the odd suggestion that tragedy might be about to strike.
The film is not autobiographical, but does evidently borrow from Wells’s own memories of childhood holidays (the hotel that turns out to be a construction site, the reps performing the Macarena, the karaoke night, the snogging teenagers) and indeed from her own relationship with her father.
Accordingly, she flashes forward a few times to herself (or, at least, the older Sophie), which compounds a sense of melancholy that never quite lifts — nor is it meant to. Yet this is not a dispiriting picture, and those of you of a certain age will get a buzz from the 1990s soundtrack alone.
A moving, confident, striking, altogether splendid film.