Here Comes the Sun
Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells captures a tender and poignant father-daughter relationship that feels like a warm, hazy memory in Aftersun.
good.film
2 years ago
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Ask any filmmaker and they’ll tell you that dream sequences are among the toughest to nail. That quality of fantasy; the way they shift bizarrely around you but make total sense in the moment. But there’s a tricky cousin to the dream sequence: a movie built on memories. Memories can be shapeshifters too. Hazy, nostalgia-soaked and distorted over time, aren’t memories dreamlike in their own way? Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells explores this in her beautiful debut feature, Aftersun.
The movie introduces us to Calum, a Scottish single father in his early 30s, and his bright and curious 11-year-old daughter, Sophie. They have a cute and loving relationship, casual in each other's company, almost mate-like. We meet them on a Dad & daughter holiday together at a basic beach resort in Turkey, and Sophie is a busy bee capturing their trip on a camcorder… [needle scratch]... on a what?!
Yep, no iPhone 14s in sight here - a video camera on holiday is a dead giveaway we’re in the past, seeing Calum & Sophie’s getaway from a few decades ago. Sophie’s childlike camerawork (which pops onto screen from time to time) is our reminder that children see the world differently: these are Sophie’s memories of her holiday with her father, which may not tell the whole story. It’s a clever device. As the footage is shown on screen (sometimes whizzing past in fast-forward, searching), we get the sense that this tape is being rewatched today, in the present. It plants the seed for us that Sophie is watching this tape now as an adult; probably about the same age as her father was on their holiday. So who is Sophie today? What is she searching to learn about their trip - about her father?
The answer is one that gently floats to the surface as this tender film unfolds. This is not a movie with an A+B=C plot; the script is not a hand-holder. Instead, the film starts to soak into you as our understanding grows; there are clues subtly scattered throughout that begin to fill in our picture of Calum, both as a sweet and tender father and as a conflicted man.
He reads yoga books on his trip and practises Tai Chi, yet he hides his smoking habit on the balcony as Sophie sleeps. He buys a Turkish rug that is clearly beyond his means, and offers to pay for Sophie to have singing lessons, which she chides him for, saying “I know you don’t have the money”. He jokes with Sophie, laughs with her and encourages her to have fun with other kids at the resort under his watchful eye - he’s a wonderful Dad. And yet Calum has flashes of recalcitrance: he refuses to join Sophie for karaoke, he disappears for an evening leaving Sophie locked out of their room, and - disturbingly - he strides into the dark ocean at night, seemingly intending on a one-way trip.
“A tremendous film. Something that looks at a hard topic like depression in a very beautiful and human way.” ~ BBC.com
The pieces fall into place when we witness Calum - crucially, not through Sophie’s camera - sobbing to himself, struggling with the depression that’s been woven like a fine ribbon through the preceding scenes. He’s been hiding his battle from Sophie, which is the ‘a-ha’ answer to our earlier question. We realise Sophie’s scanning her video as an adult, looking for any clues of her father’s depression - clues she would’ve missed as an 11-year-old child.
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Although we’re not on holiday at a Turkish resort, ‘Hiding the battle’ is, sadly, something a lot of Aussie blokes have in common with Calum. ‘Manning up’ or sticking to a stoic ‘She’ll be right’ attitude is still a strong theme with male mental health in this country. Aussie mental health organisation Beyond Blue notes that men continue to feel reluctant to seek help for mental health issues due to stigma - in other words, a belief that seeking help is a ‘sign of weakness’.
According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, depression and anxiety are the leading mental health issues experienced by fathers in Australia. Depression or bipolar disease affects the lives of 12.2% of Australian men between the ages of 16 and 85, and anxiety is higher at nearly 15%. While you may not have ever given any thought to single fathers (like Aftersun’s Calum) struggling with their mental health, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that in 2020, there were 278,500 single fathers in Australia. So doing the numbers, it’s reasonable to assume that close to 40,000 single Dads in this country are going through the very same battles we see Calum ‘hiding’ on screen.
It’s a reminder of how stories like Aftersun can deeply humanise the real world issues we face (and the ones we maybe don’t realise that others are facing). A huge credit for that humanising goes to Irish actor Paul Mescal, who brings an enormous amount of naturalism and tenderness to his role as Sophie’s Dad; he even picked up a surprise Oscar nomination for this small film on the strength of his performance. 12-year-old Frankie Corio is also amazing as Sophie, in her first ever acting role. Mescal revealed in a recent interview that the pair bonded during a two-week rehearsal period before the shoot, and it worked: we absolutely believe that the two actors are father and daughter. There’s a real & genuine connection between them that feels impossible to fake.
“Aftersun is a bright, funny, immensely likeable and touching film.” ~ Stuff.co.nz
In some ways we feel we’re spying on this private holiday; the closeness of their bond and the behind-the-scenes nature of seeing their carefree videos lends the film a uniquely intimate feel. Director Wells must’ve felt she caught lightning in a bottle filming the pair act out the scenes she partially based on her own childhood. We’ll say it: we’ve never seen a father-daughter relationship portrayed quite as beautifully on screen.
If that’s enticed you to see Aftersun, here’s where you might like to stop reading this article (and buy your Good Tix to catch the film in cinemas!) - spoilers ahead in the next paragraph…
Interested in other films about family and mental health? Discover the top 10 streaming titles that explore both of these powerful themes - or donate to the cause at good.film/donate.
Towards Aftersun’s conclusion, we do meet the adult Sophie in a glimpse of her life today: living with a new baby and a female partner, it’s her birthday. We discover their bed sits atop the same rug her father stretched to buy in Turkey those years ago. It’s a stark motif that raises a tragic question: was the rug a gift… or an inheritance? Is Calum a part of his young grandchild’s life… or is he now, heartbreakingly, just a memory? Charlotte Wells prompts us to ponder the answer with admirable restraint, leaving us to decide for ourselves as the credits roll on her poignant and delicate film.
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