While this should be under streaming reviews, I’ve turned this review of Aftersun into a one-off plea for a theatrical release. For this is a small Indie film that became the darling of the critics in 2022, and from out of nowhere, earned lead actor Paul Mescal a Best Actor nomination for the Oscars.
It won the British Independent Film Award for Best British Independent Film, was nominated as Best Feature in the Gotham Independent Film Awards, and in the Critics Choice Movie Awards, earned nominations for Mescal as Best Actor, and for young 12-year old actress Frankie Corio for Best Young Performer.
Aftersun (Amazon Prime by demand) - Here’s an Indie film, the debut of Director Charlotte Wells, that by all accounts, may have gone generally unnoticed, but was buoyed by the masterly control Wells has over the very personal material, and the wonderful performances she teased out from the two main actors. The film basically follows a father (Paul Mescal), and his daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) on holiday in Turkey. She’s 11-years old during the holiday, and we come to understand in the course of the film, how there’s an adult Sophie, looking back to said holiday, and the memories she has of her father. Paul Mescal is so terrific as the father that it earned him an Oscar Best Actor nomination - the big surprise of the nominations announcement.
Through the prism of that holiday, the film deals with memory, grief, loss, and mental health. We come to understand and appreciate how the father is struggling with psychiatric issues, and that taking his own life is a very potent and real solution for him. And yet, he tries his hardest to function like a normal human being, and be a doting father to his daughter. It’s a pitch perfect, natural performance, that vividly relates how those suffering from deep mental problems can often look so normal and pass us by on the streets with us having no inkling of the trauma he or she may be going through.
Just as natural and disarming in her role as Sophie is Frankie Corio. Interviews with Corio relate how Aftersun is her very first time to act in a film, and that all her parents had done was submit her photo to the casting agency that was looking for a ‘tomboyish young girl’. While she may have fit the role visually, it’s how she acts without being self-conscious that will warm you to her portrayal.
Charlotte Wells is very much in control of her storytelling prowess here, the editing, cinematography, and flitting back and forth in time, all adding to the depth full narrative exposition. How she plays with the two iterations of Sophie - as young adolescent, then as adult, may even be confusing at first, but we soon appreciate it for how it touches on the nature of grief and memory.
Mescal is all nervous tics, not able to always look his daughter on the eye, bluff bravado and nonchalance, then painful tenderness and fragility. It’s a gamut of emotions that this actor projects, and we are mesmerized by how it all looks so organic. That he isn’t a Hollywood actor, or even that familiar a face, all works in his favor, as there are moments we are truly convinced we aren’t watching an actor, but viewing home videos or a documentary.
While this is a plea for a cinema release, I don’t see much chance of this happening unless Mescal does take the prize at the Oscars in March. It’s a small film about small people and their humdrum issues, but it packs so much emotional weight, it’s easy to appreciate why it’s earning so many accolades and distinctions.