Inverness Film Festival: Aftersun (12A)

5 stars

There were so many great debut feature films from new film directors at this year’s Inverness Film Festival – but none were more miraculously note-perfect than Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun.

The understated story of a father and daughter’s last holiday in Turkey just sneaks up on you emotionally and melts you to the core.

Getting rave reviews since it first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, it won the jury’s French Touch prize for Charlotte Wells and it is currently up for 16 awards in the British Independent Film Awards, including best film, best director, best joint lead performance.

Paul Mescal (Normal People) plays Calum the now single young dad of 11-year-old Sophie, played by newcomer Frankie Corio, and the two are spending some quality time together before Sophie goes back to her mum and school.

But we already know this holiday from the 1990s is the past, the movie begins with the sound of a camera whirring – a grown-up Sophie celebrating her birthday and thinking about her own parenthood – and her dad’s – looking back?

The first picture that comes up from the camcorder is young Sophie trying to film her dad, but he doesn’t want to answer her questions. We then cut to Sophie as a young adult, eyes closed on a dancefloor under strobe lights, then the sound of a baby crying.

Director Charlotte Wells presents these clues to let us work out Sophie is looking back, rerunning in her memory and on the camcorder film, the holiday that seemed so perfect, but letting us see moments that hint at what Calum tries to hide.

But we also get to witness the close father-daughter relationship for ourselves as the two chill out on holiday – swim, play pool, eat, go on a trip and celebrate Calum’s birthday. Sometimes we just get to listen to their breathing as they sleep in the room they share.

The closeness between Calum and Sophie is utterly convincing, the two actors turning in naturalistic performances that can be playful and jokey but occasionally also tender – like the moment sitting on a boat side by side in the sun when they let their arms rest together on the guardrail.

But clues leave you questioning what is left unsaid, hidden by Calum who seems to have a checklist of useful life tools to pass on to Sophie before their time runs out – how to shuffle cards, fend off an attacker, try new things, secure an heirloom he can’t afford that we see later in the home of grown-up Sophie. The good dad.

But there are also times when some internal conflict mean he leaves her vulnerable as he battles with demons of his own – such as the wincingly awkward scene when he won’t perform karaoke with her.

The struggle inside him is summed up in two conversations.

Calum wants to be there for his daughter: “I want you to feel you can tell me anything…” he says.

But when Sophie starts describing feeling down – “… you’re tired and down and it feels like your bones don’t work and you’re sinking” – he glibly avoids the chance to talk about a tendency to depression Sophie might share with him. Head down, he just says: “We’re here trying to have a good time, eh?”

The last night of the holiday ramps up the sense that something is ending – we glimpse a touching postcard from Calum to Sophie. We watch the two dancing and laughing to Blur’s Tender.

And in one of the movie’s best moments, a Polaroid picture is taken of the two and develops in front of us – Calum secretly sticking two fingers up behind Sophie’s head – a memory we get to share as the words of Under Pressure make a perfect soundtrack.

“Can’t we just stay here?” Sophie asks, in one of the film’s last conversations.

In a way they do. The final glimpse of Calum takes him where your imagination needs him to go. Adult Sophie has responsibilities of her own – her father's daughter?

QUOTE:

Dad: Last night, time for a dance.

Sophie: I don’t dance!

Dad: I love to dance … is it embarrassing?

Aftersun is back in Inverness at Eden Court Cinema from Friday, December 2 to Thursday, December 8. The film is on general release from Friday (November 18).

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