Open Air | Aftersun
Acclaimed, tender portrait of a father-daughter relationship with a terrific lead role by Paul Mescal (Normal People, The Lost Daughter) as the young father.
Young teen Sophie and her 30-year-old father Calum go on holiday to a Turkish resort where they swim, play pool, soak up the sun and laze around. In intimate closeups, we see Calum and Sophie applying cream on each other’s bodies, practicing self-defence techniques or filming one another with a camcorder.
Charlotte Wells’ autobiographical first feature Aftersun is a tender, deeply felt portrait of this fleeting period, framed through Sophie’s fragmented recollections as an adult. The genuine warmth between father and daughter is punctuated by small frictions that lend their relationship a trace of melancholy.
Set in an anonymous tourist resort, Aftersun concretizes memories with specific details of gestures and moods. This attention to intimate details gives the film the atmosphere of lazy summer afternoons far from home in the company of a loved one.
Aftersun premiered at the Critics’ Week in Cannes and became the biggest discovery of the festival. The film was voted best film of 2022 by both film website Indiewire and British film magazine Sight & Sound.