Aftersun
At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum. As a world of adolescence creeps into view, beyond her eye Calum struggles under the weight of life outside of fatherhood. Twenty years later, Sophie's tender recollections of their last holiday become a powerful and heartrending portrait of their relationship, as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't.
- Released: 2022-10-21
- Runtime: 101 minutes
- Genre: Drama
- Stars: Frankie Corio, Paul Mescal, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Sally Messham, Ayse Parlak, Sophia Lamanova, Brooklyn Toulson, Spike Fearn, Harry Perdios, Frank Corio, Ruby Thompson, Ethan James Smith, Onur Ekşioğlu, Cafer Karahan, Kayleigh Coleman, John Stuifzand, Tyler Mutlu, Kieran Burton, Nijat Gachayev, Sarah Makharine, Erol Cengizalp
- Director: Charlotte Wells
Comments
- antonio-derani - 5 June 2024
Boring as hell
Ok, I get it that this is a wannabe cult movie. But the shaking camera (epileptics beware), the exceeding long scenes with nothing (like the first one when the father dances at the balcony with his back to the camera), and the people's faces out of frame (sometimes only part of the face is on screen) are too much even for a cult movie.
The movie has no message so they overused these techniques to cover the lack of substance.
If you dont sleep earlier, you will go through the movie trying to find clues to discover what is the intended message. Reaching the end and not finding any, you will either justify your loss of time by praising this movie as "original" or you will realize the farce. I am among the second group of people. - MikeyB1793 - 19 March 2024
More than mundane
Poorly filmed, useless dialogue leading nowhere.
Long scenes of people snoring, sitting by the pool, the beach.
It's amateur night - as in this is my summer vacation with dear old dad Why would anyone care??
There is not much feeling conveyed. There was one nice scene of them buying a carpet. Did they even bargain - this is Turkey after all.
There is absolutely no sense of location - it could have been filmed anywhere . Did Dad bother to take her to see any cultural sites.? No mood is imparted through-out with no sense of character development - except to be cute
Thank God for the fast-forward button. A real bore-fest. Had nothing to say. - nicolaieflorin94 - 21 February 2024
Waste of time
Do not listen to all the people saying it makes sense at the end or if you watch it the second time. It doesn t. It is just the drama of a woman remembering a vacation with her father in Turkey aroung 20 years ago. Absolutley nothing special. Absolutley no action. There is no climax either!
It is just another european psichological movie with long frames where you need to have a huge amount of patience to make it to the end. My girlfriend felt asleep three times while watching it.
If you are at that point where you are looking for a drama movie to watch, just go for something else. There are several other options. - garethcrook - 9 January 2023
Beautifully moving.
Despite the hype around Aftersun. I know nothing going in. I'm good at burying my head in the sand. We're introduced to a young father and his daughter, spending time together on holiday in Turkey. Sunshine and sea. It's all very normal feeling. Calum (Paul Mescal) is a good dad. Doting. Sophie (Frankie Corio), growing up, her perspective in flux. Maybe it's the quieter moments, but I've a sense of unease. Maybe it's the lingering shots. Maybe it's the dark strings that creep in. Sophie has a lot of questions and a lot on her mind, perhaps they both do. Something is being left unsaid. Herein is the problem with writing about films like this. It's all about the feeling given off. It's a rare trick to pull off and marks this out as something a bit special. I'm also reluctant to spoil this for anyone who's not yet watched it. Mescal and Corio are both brilliant at portraying this. Dialogue is often sparse and it's the things left unsaid that weigh the heaviest. With a DV camera, Sophie records parts of the holiday. Standard blurred, badly framed memories. Clips of both of them sharing time... until Sophie who's just turned 11, asks her Dad "When you were 11, what did you think you would be doing now". Its pivotal question innocently posed. Aftersun is a beautiful piece of filmmaking. Wonderfully shot, perfectly cast, with the sort of narrative that envelopes you. I love that this kind of film kind not only garner critical acclaim but also find an audience. It gives me faith in the future of film... and people. "Did you have a good holiday?", "Yeah, wish we could stay for longer". That's how I feel about this film. - icequeen_vienna - 5 January 2023
Disappointing
A cinema buddy recommended this to me. Now, I am all for films with few characters and not much happening but this was DULL. There was no mood or interesting style to it and the little girl started getting on my nerves. I don't want to watch kids playing video games in a crappy resort. It just did not go anywhere. I left after 40 minutes because it was so boring. I think the main problem was the somewhat disjointed style and lack of build-up of characters. You just didn't care about them. Like several of the reviews here, yes, it was like watching someone's home video of their holiday, and there wasn't even any interesting sightseeing. If there was a deep meaningful point to this, then I didn't get it. Yet there are plenty of 'meaningful' films which I DO get, so I don't think it's me. - cdownes-56407 - 28 December 2022
Why all the fuss?
Find it hard to understand the almost universal acclaim this film is attracting. It's almost as if I watched a different film. The Guardian have it as their #1 film for 2022. I have to ask, why?, how? Unless I missed all the subtleties, which is possible, nothing happened. I endured this rather than enjoyed it. I don't get the claims that is a wonderful protrayal of father daughter relationships. The reviews smack of elitisim, if you don't rate this film then you just don't get art. The emperors new clothing springs to mind. The Guardian has Cailín Cúin / The Quiet Girl as their #2 film for 2022, it is, in my opinion, a much better film. - rafiado - 23 December 2022
Best Holiday Trip
Long time I didn't make any of these reviews. But Aftersun is such a masterpiece. The whole movie it just so relaxing, the tone, the music, cinematography, story, everything just so relaxing and make me super comfortable watching this movie. With a light drama, the director make this movie super touching our heart, with how they're relationship. Very very recommendations for family time or father and daughter movie time, but I didn't recommend for little kids cause they Mild sexual theme or maybe moderate.
I watched this like this morning but it's hard for me to forget this movie, cause their relationship it just perfect. One of the best movie this year, A24 has never failed to make any movie. - DavidOrpheus - 20 December 2022
Summer Dream and one of the best of 2022
Aftersun is a beautiful and moving film with fantastic performances by the two leads. It's not a strong narrative driven movie; it underlines subtlety, mood, ambience - like a long lost summer dream, and aesthetically not unlike Call Me By Your Name or Lost in Translation, to name a few.
The film also tells you a lot about you, as a viewer, and how you've been formatted to think a certain way - many times while watching it you can't help but think that something bad is going to happen: 'this is the scene where she'll be humiliated by the other kids' or 'this when the sexual abuse or incest scene will occur' for example; fortunately, none of those things ever happen and the film is all the better for it.
The editing and the naturalistic cinematography are great, the recreation of the late 90s by the various creative departments is fantastic (it feels most of all authentic, natural and believable, never too forced or caricaturised), and Charlotte Wells does a mesmering job driving the film movingly forward. The soundtrack is a great throwback to that era and Oliver Coates's score is beautifully envolving.
Frankie Corio is a natural talent and her performance avoids any sort of over dramatisation or theatricality. Paul Mescal is incredible and a major force and their chemistry together is deeply felt. By the time the film reaches its ending you'll feel moved and broken but in no way depressed.
For sure one of the best films of 2022. May it get the recognition and accolades it deserves! - OvanecaACinefila - 9 December 2022
Simply Perfect.
Simple, detailed, and intimate. Aftersun does a perfect job as a piece of art that portrays the fragile relationship of a kid and her father. On one side there is a young, confused and bruised man. And on the other, there is a little girl that wants to have a good vacation, but, apart from that, a good relationship with her father. This movie tells the public that every parent out there is living their first life, as well as their kids. It's acceptable to not be there and well all the time, but for the male adult Callum is a requirement for him to be partially there, not with his mind, but at least with his body. The young Sophie is still getting to know who she is and what might have caused their relationship to be seeming strange sometimes.
The end of the movie shared a peak on the adult Sophie revisiting their summer vacation, and relieving her old paternal memories. But at the same time, Sophie's expression gives the feeling that she is trying to understand something, and, in my point of view, she is getting to realize that her father wasn't all there because other things rather than having no money and no girlfriend were affecting him, like his mental health, something that made her young self be, sometimes, upset on how her dad wasn't happy and excited all the time, like she was. - Janetcolgate - 24 November 2022
So dull and boring - it was hard work to see it to the end
Just plain dull ... And boring ... And dare I say pointless and pretentious?
It took me 45 minutes to realise that nothing was going to happen in this film, and at this point I desperately hit Google on my phone to see if I was somehow missing the point or something really profound. I wasn't. The film, which detailed (and I mean really detailed) a father/daughter sun holiday, was about interesting as watching your great aunt's holiday photos of Rhyl on a slideshow in January. Yes, the performances were ok, but they were wasted on the monotony of an endless, interminable sequence of playing pool, eating meals, sleeping, and chatting with random strangers in the water. And all the while, nothing happened. They ate, they slept, they put sun cream on, and that was it for the entirety of the movie. Zzzzzzz.
The Dad had issues, but I couldn't have cared less as there was no explanation of what they were and why he was experiencing them. The girl was sweet, but that's about it ... In her own reflections of herself, from an adult perspective she was impeccably behaved and too good to be true (Really? Show me an 11 year old who is perfectly behaved on holidays).
I could go on about how boring this film was, but frankly I'm bored even thinking about it. So I'll stop here ...
