Charlotte Wells' Aftersun... as Friday Date night movie
Or, "I wanted to watch Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, it also has a 95 on Rotten Tomatoes!"
*Spoilers follow for Aftersun, so if you, like my wife, have been reading all about it and want to go in unspoiled, watch it first I guess.*
As one does on a Friday night, my wife and I settled in for a long overdue movie night. She had a movie in mind, 2022’s Aftersun, directed by Charlotte Wells, starring Paul Mescal as a father named Calum, Frankie Curio as his 11 year old daughter Sophie and Celia Rowlson-hall as adult Sophie. A cinematic memory play using the device of a camcorder on a Turkish get away in the 90-aughts (you know, that nebulous time before smart phones were completely ubiquitous) to focus very meditatively on the changing relationship between an 11 year old girl on a birthday trip with her traumatized but loving 30 year old father.
We watched it because, and I quote, “everyone on my substack feed won’t shut up about this movie”, and having watched it, I can see why. In trying to describe it, there’s just so much to unpack just below its very slow moving surface! The flash forwards to adults dancing in a club, the way simple gestures like applying suntan lotion become metaphors for coming of age and growing apart (an experience no doubt many of us can relate to), I could go on. Our only problem in watching the movie… neither of us actually enjoyed ourselves very much.
About twenty minutes in, understanding what we’re in for (not to humble brag but I’ve seen plenty of art films and have embarked to write a few myself), I asked her “what did your Substack friends say about this movie?” She responded, “that it’s a very moving story about learning about the part of your parent you don’t know as a child”.
That is, being an adult and understanding your parent as a fellow adult, but using the POV of the protagonist as an 11 year old to create a cinematic rendition of memory, impressionistically flawed, with the camera lingering on objects like a memory might do. Flashes of moments just seen out of the periphery, two boys making out, a few moments before our protagonist has HER first kiss. The Dad disappears into the ocean, the implication being I might have have killed himself) (he doesn’t kill himself, but my wife was particularly disturbed by the suggestion) (this ties back to my personal reading that the Dad has some kind of unspoken queerness but then again the adult daughter is also queer so who knows, it’s all very ambiguous).
And basically, nothing happens.
But also, SO MUCH HAPPENS BENEATH THE SURFACE.
And then when it breaks with reality in the final moment and you realize they were both in the night club the whole time it’s like WHOA, MIND BLOWN. And to be fair, in the final fifteen minutes or so we stopped talking about what we were watching (and how annoyed we were at all the Substackers who recommended the movie) and just watched until the end.
I also want to applaud everyone involved. It’s beautifully acted by the two leads, like you really believe it’s a home movie, the little girl acts like a real little girl, the Dad feels like her Dad. It’s fresh and interesting and if you’re trying for a close reading of an art movie to write about in your OWN substack, it’s a very interesting and engaging experience.
Just maybe don’t watch it as a Friday date night movie.
My wife teased as we took a snack break (as one does on a Friday date night) that there's no way it could follow the beats of my beloved Save The Cat. To which I say, sure it kinda does! It’s not necessarily the structure the author intended, but it’s the meaning we make along the way that makes applying a story template a useful tool. Also, whether or not she’d read or was influenced by Save The Cat, Charlotte Wells definitely understands structure and it is present in the movie, OK imaginary hater nerds I’m envisioning reading this?
As the film is a memory play, I will try to relate how it applies to the Save The Cat Beat Sheet (which you can read about here, but I’m assuming you’ll just follow along from context)... from memory. Both in the spirit and theme of memory as presented by the film, and because we rented it from Amazon for $5.99, I’m not going to pay to watch it again for this blog.
Opening Image
It opens expressionistically in the dance club. Giving a sense of “what the hell is going on?” Pretty sure we see glimpses of Adult Sophie and of her father’s silhouette (but like, you don’t KNOW that’s who it is, it’s very trippy)..
Theme Stated
We transition into flashback. Opening with a moment that will be echoed later, child Sophie with the video camera in the hotel with her Dad. We learn it’s her birthday, she’s 11 and she teases that her Dad is one hundred and thirty… one (if you’re paying attention, we can deduce her Dad is about 30, meaning he had Sophie young at 19/20). She asks, “when you were eleven, what did you think you’d be doing now?” The subtext comes across in the father’s pained expression, “I love you daughter, but not this.” In the present day we’ll learn much later, Sophie is also about 30, and a new parent thinking about this trip and watching the camcorder’s captured memories.
Personal Epiphany: Oh yeah, Aftersun is a parental regret narrative ala The Lost Child but from the Dad’s perspective and the child’s POV, I personally just put that together in writing this analysis. As I was saying…
Set Up
Note: this is switched slightly from the standard formula, in part because it’s an art movie. But in the next sequence we flash back a few days further as Sophie and her Dad arrive in Turkey. An end of summer vacation. The text never makes it explicit the time of year, but they talk about Sophie’s break ending next week as if it were both the end of Summer and her birthday, so that’s the set up.
Catalyst
Sophie and her father arrive at their budget resort hotel, where their reservation is wrong, there's only one bed. Another deliberate moment as Sophie sleeps and her Dad calls to the front desk to negotiate, but they’re stuck in the room with one bed, which is AWKWARD because did I mention she’s on the verge of puberty but still a child?
Debate
As they settle into vacation mode, construction bangs on around them. The resort isn’t what they’d hoped for, but Sophie is cool about it and ready to make the most of their vacation.
Another “debate” moment, Calum (the Dad) encourages Sophie to go off and make friends with some younger kids, and she refuses. “But Dad, there’s like, young young” in reference to some eight year olds and Sophie, being eleven, wants to hang out with kids her age or older, because of course she does.
Act Two Break
Going off my memory, around this time is when Sophie and Callum (the daughter and Dad) are playing pool and some teenagers come over to claim the next game at the pool table, at which point Sophie (who is ready to throw down) challenges them to a game of doubles and they accept.
Sidenote: doesn’t this movie sound action packed and exciting?! The whole time she’s playing with this associative quality where the camera lingers and dawdles in held shots, jumping between the “cinematic camera” and in the in-movie device of the camcorder. It was around this time I questioned if this was the best date night movie, because I wanted to watch Puss In Boots The Last Wish, which ALSO has a 95 on Rotten Tomatoes… but this was what we’d rented and I was increasingly determined to see it through.
B Story: Calum tells Sophie’s Mom he loves her. Just true me, it’s very emotionally weighted and gestures at the world outside of their relationship.
Fun and Games: Calum and Sophie go on adventures around the resort. They go diving and Sophie loses her expensive goggles. Calum meditatively hangs out with the scuba instructor, they relate as men (and parents), Calum is clearly DEPRESSED.
Somewhere in here the device that we’re actually seeing these events from the POV of Sophie in the modern day, partnered to a woman with a little baby boy is introduced.
Midpoint
This happens as we catch up in the timeline to when the camcorder first started, with Sophie asking where Calum thought he’d be when he was eleven. He tells a sad story from his messy sounding childhood. This is a crest emotionally and a dramatically, if you imagine our movie as a hill (like Blake does in STC) this is where we begin to crest downwards.
Bad Guys Close In:
Calum and Sophie go to a rug store. They talk about rugs. Calum asks how much the rug is, but doesn’t buy it. Tension ensues.
Calum separates himself from Sophie (I can’t remember what prompts this because they separate again later or maybe I’m just misremembering), he buys the carpet. Did I mention Sophie has had a developing relationship with the crew of older kids AND a boy her age? Because it’s going to be important soon.
All Is Lost: It’s karaoke night, Sophie sings REM’s Losing My Religion as a way of… calling out her Dad’s depression after her refuses to do karaoke with her. He makes a comment about paying for her singing lessons, she tells him not to offer things he knows he can’t afford, *BOOM what a teenager-ish thing to say* and here is where they separate.
Dark Night of the Soul: Sophie experiences the resort at night without her Dad. Calum wanders the town, and considers walking off into the ocean, before disappearing from the narrative for a few scenes. She has moments with the older kids and finds the boy from earlier that she’d been playing a racing video game with, they go off together.
Break Into Three: Sophie kisses the boy from before, and gets locked out of her room with her Dad, who we still don’t know where he went. She gets back into the room and Calum is passed out on her bed, naked. She covers him with a sheet and sleeps on the cot. SYMBOLISM!
Finale: They make the most of their last day of the trip, they go on a resort offered adventure and renew their connection as Sophie tells her Dad about kissing Michael. He tells her that she can tell him about anything, and he hopes she will. When they return to the resort, Calum embarasses Sophie by dancing to the music, Queen and David Bowie’s “Underpressure”.
Sidenote: How much of this movie’s budget went into getting the rights to that one song do you think? Like 50 percent? I’m not even joking, music rights can be hella expensive.
She relents and joins him on the dance floor, as the moment merges with our expressionistic dance club, we see clearly Calum and Sophie in both the present and past/dream tense, dance ecstactically.
Final Image: Present Day Sophie wakes up and puts her feet down on the expensive carpet her Dad bought all those years ago. We cut back and forth between the present day Sophie watching on a camcorder as she says goodbye to her Dad, filming as she gets on the plane presumably back to Scotland where she lives with her Mom. It feels like this is the last time she sees him, but then where does she get the camcorder and the rug and stuff? Not to get caught up in the details, just my reading is that she does continue to have a relationship with him but this is their last major moment of connection before he dies young… who knows.
The really mind blowing part is when the camera pans around from adult Sophie, to Calum watching her get on the plane before turning around and going through a set of doors… to the dance club where he’s been this entire time! Whoa!
Well anyway, I hope that gave you some appreciation for the structure of Aftersun. I apologize for all the details I missed or got wrong. Maybe check it out! And tune in next time when I get to pick the movie for my review of Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (it totally has a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes).
That’s not a great final note, let me try again. If you want to take something away, it’s that there is probably merit and understanding of your craft to be found in the art you don’t necessarily LIKE or I guess it’s better said ENJOY, as I do kind of like Aftersun… just, not as a date movie.