Aftersun
2022 · Directed by Charlotte Wells
Original language: English
- drama
The story
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories fill the gaps between camcorder footages as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the troubled man she didn't.
What it’s like
Warm, washed-out 16mm-style grain over sun-bleached Turkish resort days, with long handheld takes that drift close to faces and then hold back, as if the camera were trying not to intrude. Golden afternoon light pours across pool decks, tiled hotel corridors and hazy mountain views, while the nights fall into deep blue dark lit only by a glowing screen or a single lamp. Sound is sparse: the slap of water, distant karaoke and pool-party chatter, and a few quiet, aching songs that surface at just the right moment. The vibe is tender melancholy, a sunburnt nostalgia that feels like a summer holiday remembered from the far side of grief. It suits a rainy Sunday or a late, solitary evening when you want to sit quietly with something bittersweet. The pace is slow and elliptical, the arc of a young woman and her father slowly revealing the distance between who he was and who she thought he was. Intensity is low: there is no violence or gore, only emotional weight, sadness and some adult despair that surfaces in fleeting, unsettling glimpses. For people who want something gentle, intimate and quietly devastating.
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