movie review of aftersun

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors.

Now streaming on:

In the foreground, an 11-year-old girl lies asleep in bed. On the balcony beyond, seen through the plate-glass door, the girl's father struggles to light a cigarette, hampered by the cast on his right arm. Mission accomplished, he sways back and forth rhythmically, arms moving outwards and upwards and down, a dreamy approximation of Tai Chi moves, perhaps. It's not quite clear what is going on with him, since the camera doesn't move in closer, and there are barriers separating us from him. This is a moment of solitude for the father, snatched at the end of the day when his child is asleep. The daughter's deep breathing provides the rhythm for the father's movements, and there's something almost eerie about the moment. The 11-year-old daughter sleeps through it all.

But what is "it," exactly?

This question lies at the shifting center of Charlotte Wells' moving debut feature "Aftersun," detailing a father-daughter vacation at a cheap resort in Turkey, and the scene above—which comes early on, when we're still getting our bearings—is key. There's something unknowable about Calum ( Paul Mescal ), and maybe this is because Sophie (Frankie Corio) is a child, and he's her dad, and she's just about coming to the age where she's separating herself and becoming her own person.

There's an uneasiness in the sequence, but the source of it is hard to place, or even name, particularly since Calum and Sophie are enjoying their vacation, overall. The occasional friction is of the normal parent-child variety, nothing too toxic, nothing too traumatic. But the depths, as they say, are sounded. The child is perceptive, and senses things, even if she can't put it into words (although often she can). She perceives more than her father thinks she does. But children are resilient. It is possible to perceive a parent's existential anxiety and still have a great time making a new friend at the arcade. The two things even happen simultaneously. Consciousness operates on multiple tracks and "Aftersun" understands this. The multi-level awareness is not in the dialogue, but it's there in the film's gentle rhythms, the editorial choices, the patience and sensitivity of Wells' approach.

Sophie's parents are separated, and she lives mainly with her mother. Calum talks about getting a new place, where Sophie will have her own room, and maybe starting a new business with someone named "Keith," and from the way he talks about all this it's obvious he barely believes in any of it. Something's not gone right for him. Does he party too much? He became a father at a young age. There are "clues" that his life hasn't quite worked out the way he had hoped. He has brought books on meditation and Tai Chi, suggesting not so much a lifelong practice as a way to stave off anxiety. His worries weigh him down. Sophie senses this. It's tense when she loses her scuba mask, and she informs him she knows it's expensive and she's sorry. Calum is taken aback by her remark. He thought his worries were well-hidden. Calum may be a bit adrift, but he clearly loves his daughter. They have a little tiff at one point, and he apologizes to her later for his behavior. He's a good dad. Their energy together is comfortable, intimate, familiar.

"Aftersun" is clearly told from Sophie's point of view, but a perceptive viewer will notice there are scenes where Sophie is not present. The film, then, is from the adult Sophie's point of view, an adult—a new parent herself—looking back on this vacation, curious about what her father must have been going through. She knows her own memories of the vacation. But what was going on with him?

Wells intersperses the vacation with surreal dream-like "rave" sequences, where an adult Sophie ( Celia Rowlson-Hall , whose 2016 directorial debut " Ma " I so admired and reviewed for this site) stands on a crowded dance floor, catching glimpses of her father writhing to the music in the intermittent lightning flashes of the strobe lights. She wants to get to him, touch him, hold him. Sophie is an adult now. She understands him so much better now. What would it be like if she could talk to him? They would still have so much to say to one another. In a way, "Aftersun" is an act of imaginative empathy. Sophie can now look at the things that child Sophie could not see.

This once-removed point of view, this slightly distanced stance, gives the film its melancholy melody of an almost elegiac sweetness. In the present moment, all is sunshine and laughter, Calum and Sophie having ice cream, getting mud baths, swimming, where it doesn't matter that the resort is cheap and there's construction going on. What matters is being together. Mescal (so wonderful in "Normal People") gives such a tactile earthy performance, grounded in the details. There are fleeting glimpses of worry and self-loathing, his fears about not being good enough, not being a good provider or failing her ... all of the things he feels he must hide—and, for the most part—does hide.

Frankie Corio is a newcomer. She's alert, sensitive, and a totally natural presence. The dynamic between Corio and Mescal is nothing short of amazing—they are so comfortable with one another! They're playful and thoughtful, they get joy from one another, but are capable of hurting one another too. This dynamic is a tribute to both Mescal and Corio, of course, but also a tribute to Wells' gifts in both casting and working with actors.

Cinematographer Gregory Oke uses a soft rich palette, summery and saturated, and often keeps the frame off-center, destabilizing the point of view. Calum is often seen through a doorway, or as a reflection—in a mirror or a television screen—obscured, half-there, half not-there, similar to adult Sophie's glimpses of him at the rave: the strobe is so violent, it's impossible to see him in full, to perceive him as there and in the flesh. Sound designer Jovan Ajder also does fine work, particularly in a scene when Calum stalks down to the beach in the middle of the night for a swim. Calum is swallowed up by the blackness, and the gentle lapping of the waves slowly crescendos to the sound of thundering surf.

Wells' 2015 short film " Tuesday " could be seen as "Aftersun" in embryo. A college student spends Tuesday nights at her dad's, even though her mother seems against it. The girl wanders through her dad's empty rooms, not so much snooping as touching his belongings—his guitar, one of his sweaters. He is not there. Where is he? Did he forget it was Tuesday? "Tuesday" is such a strong short film, filled with a young person's ache to understand a man so close to her, so close and yet so far away he might as well not be there at all.

I remember the moment I realized—not just intellectually, but viscerally—how young my parents were when they had me. I was looking at a photograph of my father holding two-year-old me in his arms. He was about 26 years old at the time. I stared at his face, its youthful curves, the light in his eyes, the gentle way he held onto my hand (mainly so I wouldn't yank his glasses off his face). I had a strange sense of time telescoping out on both ends. I thought of myself at 26 years old, how young and wild I was. It still seems unbelievable to me that he was that young. He was such a good dad. I would love to ask him about his life. I would love to ask him what it all was like for him. "Aftersun" is Wells' beautiful attempt to do the same.

Now playing in theaters.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Now playing

Dusk for a Hitman

Robert daniels.

LaRoy, Texas

Matt Zoller Seitz

Stress Positions

Peter sobczynski.

Food, Inc. 2

Glenn kenny.

Late Night with the Devil

Film credits.

Aftersun (2022)

Rated R for some language and brief sexual material.

101 minutes

Paul Mescal as Calum

Francesca Corio as Sophie

Celia Rowlson-Hall as Adult Sophie

Sally Messham as Melinda

Ayse Parlak as Teen Girl 1

Sophia Lamanova as Teen Girl 2

Brooklyn Toulson as Michael

Spike Fearn as Olly

Charlotte Wells

Cinematographer

Gregory Oke
Blair McClendon
Oliver Coates

Latest blog posts

The Movies That Underwent Major Changes After Their Festival Premiere

Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives Is A Spinoff Stuck In Limbo

Preview of Tributes at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Pioneering Actor-Producer Terry Carter Dies

Supported by

Critic’s Pick

‘Aftersun’ Review: A Father and Time

A daughter’s memory of a vacation in Turkey is at the heart of Charlotte Wells’s astonishing and devastating debut feature.

Share full article

By A.O. Scott

The relationship between a parent and a child is wired for heartbreak — a primal attachment headed for an inevitable double grief. Kids grow up and flee the nest. Parents die. It’s the natural order of things, calamitous even when no untimely tragedies intervene to amplify the pain.

Such a tragedy does shadow “Aftersun,” the tender and devastating first feature from the 35-year-old Scottish director Charlotte Wells, but the power of the film comes from its embrace of the basic and universal fact of loss. It’s about a mostly happy experience — a father-daughter vacation in a resort town on the Turkish coast, with snorkeling excursions, hotel buffets and lazy hours by the pool — that ends in tears. Your tears.

Eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her father, Calum ( Paul Mescal ), are mostly too caught up in the delights and frustrations of the present to express much sorrow or anxiety, but they also seem aware that time is moving quickly. Sophie, on the edge of adolescence, is both hanging onto childhood and rushing toward maturity. Her eyes are always moving, scanning her surroundings for clues and portents.

A young man himself — he’s about to turn 31 and is mistaken by a fellow tourist for Sophie’s older brother — Calum carries some weariness in his lithe frame. His boyish features are creased with worry. We don’t learn much about his history — Wells is not the kind of director to spoil delicate scenes with expository dialogue — but we’re aware that he and Sophie’s mother aren’t together. We can also infer some hard knocks and bad decisions in his past.

Maybe in his future as well. One thing we do know about Calum — though it’s hard to say exactly how we come by this knowledge — is that he dies sometime after the vacation. From the very first scenes, the presence of camcorders and the absence of smartphones places the trip in the past. A grown-up Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who at 31 has a partner and a baby, is remembering those sun-dappled mornings and karaoke nights (she sang “Losing My Religion” ) of 20 years before.

It isn’t quite right to say that “Aftersun” takes place mostly in flashbacks. It also feels wrong to describe the adult Sophie’s harrowing visions of her father dancing in a strobe-lit nightclub — scenes that occasionally interrupt the Turkish idyll — as dreams. Wells is working in a more intuitive and oblique psychological register, the flow of her images attuned to the fluidity of Sophie’s consciousness, her narrative instincts following the logic of emotion rather than the mechanics of plot. The boundaries between memory and experience aren’t so much blurred as rendered moot. And by the end of the movie you understand why: because that’s how mourning works.

“Aftersun” is as clear and literal as can be, following Sophie and Calum through ordinary tourist activities without much dramatic embellishment. There are moments that carry a hint of danger or unprocessed bad feeling — a misunderstanding about a lost diving mask, for example. Sophie sometimes tags along with a group of British teenagers, eavesdropping on their naughty banter and observing their horseplay with an eagerness that might make a watchful parent anxious. (She also flirts with a boy her own age, a fellow devotee of motorcycle-racing arcade games.) You might raise an eyebrow when Calum orders a third beer at dinner and wonder if he’s really mature enough to take care of his daughter on his own.

Late in the film, Calum’s fecklessness and Sophie’s curiosity open the door to some scary possibilities. But “Aftersun” isn’t a child-in-peril melodrama, or a punitive fable of parental irresponsibility. Its structure emerges through a pattern of perceptions and moods. Sometimes Sophie and Calum quarrel, get on each other’s nerves or fail to connect. Sometimes they’re bored, sometimes silly, and sometimes they relax into an easy, almost wordless intimacy.

Capturing the thick, complex reality of their bond — registering its quick, microscopic fluctuations and tracking its slow tectonic shifts — is Wells’s great achievement. And Mescal and Corio’s as well. They are so natural, so light and grave and particular, that they don’t seem to be acting at all.

It’s hard to find a critical language to account for the delicacy and intimacy of this movie. This is partly because Wells, with the unaffected precision of a lyric poet, is very nearly reinventing the language of film, unlocking the medium’s often dormant potential to disclose inner worlds of consciousness and feeling. She and the director of photography, Gregory Oke, favor compositions that evoke the jerky anti-symmetry of amateur video. (Wells also incorporates camcorder footage shot from Sophie and Calum’s perspective.) This isn’t to say that there’s anything haphazard about the images, which weave a fabric as fine and coherent as the carpet Calum impulsively buys, even though he most likely can’t afford it.

The rug is purchased at one of the rare moments when Sophie and Calum aren’t together, which is to say a moment that falls outside her memory even as it is part of her own story. Or rather, a piece of the story she and her father wrote together, which she has lived to tell.

Aftersun Rated R. Some bad words and tough situations, but nothing a sensitive adolescent couldn’t handle. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

As “Sex and the City” became more widely available on Netflix, younger viewers have watched it with a critical eye . But its longtime millennial and Gen X fans can’t quit.

Hoa Xuande had only one Hollywood credit when he was chosen to lead “The Sympathizer,” the starry HBO adaptation of a prize-winning novel. He needed all the encouragement he could get .

Even before his new film “Civil War” was released, the writer-director Alex Garland faced controversy over his vision of a divided America with Texas and California as allies.

Theda Hammel’s directorial debut, “Stress Positions,” a comedy about millennials weathering the early days of the pandemic , will ask audiences to return to a time that many people would rather forget.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime and Hulu to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Upcoming Movies and TV shows
Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

What's the Tomatometer®?
Login/signup

Movies in theaters

Opening this week
Top box office
Coming soon to theaters
Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

Fandango at Home
Netflix streaming
Prime Video
Most popular streaming movies
What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

Challengers Link to Challengers
Abigail Link to Abigail
Arcadian Link to Arcadian

New TV Tonight

Dead Boy Detectives: Season 1
The Jinx: Season 2
The Big Door Prize: Season 2
Knuckles: Season 1
Them: Season 2
Velma: Season 2
Secrets of the Octopus: Season 1
Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story: Season 1
We're Here: Season 4

Where to Watch

Watch Aftersun with a subscription on Paramount+, Showtime, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Led by Frankie Corio's tremendous performance, Aftersun deftly ushers audiences to the intersection between our memories of loved ones and who they really are.

You'll need to settle in for a movie that's on the slower and subtler side, but Aftersun does a brilliant job of portraying depression, and Frankie Corio is great.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Charlotte Wells

Paul Mescal

Frankie Corio

Celia Rowlson-Hall

Adult Sophie

Kayleigh Coleman

Harry Perdios

More Like This

Movie news & guides, this movie is featured in the following articles., critics reviews.

Review: ‘Aftersun,’ one of the year’s great debut films, is a piercing father-daughter story

Man with a broken wrist with his arm around his daughter

Show more sharing options
Copy Link URL Copied!

Something odd happened to me during a recent press screening of “Aftersun,” a beautifully sculpted and quietly shattering first feature from the Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells. While jotting down a few stray thoughts and details, I turned a page in my notebook and came across a drawing, something my 6-year-old daughter had doodled in bright-orange crayon. That wasn’t odd in and of itself; notebooks get passed around our house like potato-chip bags. But it was the first time the discovery of her handiwork, usually a cute and funny mid-screening distraction, had the effect of nudging me closer to the two characters in front of me — who, it may not surprise you to learn, are a girl and her father.

My apologies for the indulgent personal intro, something I’ve allowed myself only because the process of picking through one’s personal baggage — including the scribbled notes and stray memorabilia our loved ones leave for us — feels entirely germane to what Wells herself is doing. “Aftersun,” opening in theaters after an acclaimed festival run that began at Cannes this year, is what the director calls an “emotionally autobiographical” work, inspired by her recollections of a summer vacation she and her father took together in the ’90s. It’s a memory piece and, as such, a rumination on the ways in which memories can be at once indelible and imprecise, how they can torment us and fail us and still be the most precious things — maybe even the only things — we have left.

For your safety

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic . Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the CDC and local health officials .

From the opening moments, rendered in the grainy textures of camcorder footage, Wells makes explicit the patient, methodical act of sifting and sorting, of peering with intense concentration into the past. But then the past comes suddenly into focus with a shimmering, almost hyperreal clarity. The sun blazes down on the pools and deck chairs of a budget resort in Turkey, where 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) and her thirtysomething single dad, Calum (Paul Mescal), have come for a late-summer holiday. The hotel isn’t much — the tackiness of the lobby furniture, speaking of memories, will emblazon itself on your retina — but Sophie and Calum take most of their setbacks and letdowns in stride. They have the easy adaptability of two people who are pleasant and undemanding by nature and, it soon becomes clear, a little disoriented in each other’s company.

A man and a girl do a dance in a field with low mountains in the background

Sophie lives with her mother (never seen) in Scotland; Calum makes his home in England. This Mediterranean getaway is thus a rare attempt to make up for lost time, though it also carries the unmistakable feel of a farewell. That impression may well be deceptive; the future of Sophie and Calum’s relationship, if they have one, is left unexplored. But something is clearly slipping away here, most obviously Sophie’s childhood, which you can all but see vanishing into the maw of early adolescence. It isn’t just the attention she attracts from boys at the hotel or the mix of fascination, envy and faint skepticism with which she regards the teenage couple making out poolside. It’s that her entire way of seeing her young, emotionally and geographically distant father until now — as an erratic but benevolent presence, more goofy older-brother figure than paternal authority — is about to change and possibly vanish.

Corio, an amazing discovery, somehow conveys these and countless other pinprick impressions without putting any of them into words. There’s a startling translucence to her performance, a willingness to let emotions bleed through gently and unforcedly, that matches the unhurried grace and circumspection of the filmmaking. Much of the story’s meaning can be divined simply from the interplay of Gregory Oke’s cinematography and Blair McClendon’s editing, the way the movie cuts between and around Calum and Sophie mid-conversation, insistently framing and reframing the scene in a way that suggests the workings of memory itself. At times the off-center compositions, resort setting and exquisitely detailed sound design — every splash of pool water and hiss of Turkish bath steam registers with crystal clarity — reminded me of Lucrecia Martel’s coming-of-age drama “The Holy Girl,” with its skill at conveying psychological interiority through atmosphere.

Like Martel, Wells knows the power of narrative elision: “Aftersun” may be a feature-length flashback, but apart from a few lyrical framing elements, its story unfolds in a spare, self-contained present tense. Apart from a friendly, mostly inaudible phone call from Calum to Sophie’s mom, we learn nothing of their long-ago relationship. And we glean only vague details about the recent accident that shattered Calum’s wrist, save for the sight of his forearm in a cast — an image of little dramatic significance but enormous metaphorical weight. A mantle of sadness hangs over Calum, even with the warmth of his sweet, boyish smile and the vigor coursing through his frame.

The restrained but intense physicality of Mescal’s performance finds intermittent release when Calum practices his tai chi moves or, in a sudden surrender of inhibitions, goes wild on the dance floor. But the actor, as distinct here as he was in his recent supporting turns in “The Lost Daughter” and “God’s Creatures,” can hint at a deep, inchoate anguish with an image as simple as Calum having a restless smoke on the balcony while Sophie sleeps. For all his easygoing vibes, he also tends to shut down without warning, invariably when Sophie needs him most, and to feel a guilt afterward that’s all the more terrible because of her quickness to forgive. A scene in which Calum leaves Sophie to stumble her way through a solo karaoke performance seems to distill everything — adolescent awkwardness, parental abandonment, a chasm that seems to be widening in every direction.

The song Sophie’s singing in that moment is R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” one of several ’90s hits swirling through a movie with an unerring musical ear for its moment. (The moody Britpop of Blur’s “Tender” marks that moment as 1999; the Macarena craze is still in full swing.) But if Wells has assembled a note-perfect evocation of a highly specific chapter — the end of a millennium and possibly something else — it’s when she deliberately breaks with realism that this gently aching movie achieves an overwhelming emotional force.

At times she briefly flashes forward, showing us an older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) in her own early stages of parenthood. At times she shows us the accumulated relics of that long-ago holiday — an ornately woven rug, a faded Polaroid, a postcard message as achingly sincere as it is crushingly inadequate. And finally she gives us, in astonishing bursts of strobe-lit abstraction, the recurring image of Calum dancing in a faraway nightclub, lost in himself and perhaps lost to her forever. There’s mystery in this image, but also revelation and, astonishingly, recognition. As Wells has noted, “Aftersun” isn’t exactly her story, and glancing personal associations aside, it isn’t yours or mine either. And yet in these moments, for reasons as tough to articulate as they are to shake off, it feels ineffably, unmistakably ours.

Rated: R, for some language and brief sexual material Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes Playing: Starts Oct. 21 at AMC Burbank 16; AMC Century City 15

Review: In ‘Shayda,’ a woman’s escape sheds light on her abuser — and a patriarchal culture

March 1, 2024

A woman pours a glass of wine for a man.

Review: In Turkey’s ‘About Dry Grasses,’ a master manipulator barely understands his own heart

Feb. 22, 2024

In ‘Four Daughters,’ a shattered Tunisian family braves obstacles in the eye of the camera

Feb. 13, 2024

Only good movies

Get the Indie Focus newsletter, Mark Olsen's weekly guide to the world of cinema.

You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

More From the Los Angeles Times

Billie Eilish, left, and Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie in the movie "Barbie."

This is what Billie Eilish talks about when she’s not promoting ‘Barbie, Barbie, Barbie’

A man with a bloodied face is ready for action.

Review: Generic from its title onward, ‘Boy Kills World’ does little to differentiate its gore

A woman with a bun of blond hair wearing a sparkly black blazer

‘Rebel’ redacted: Rebel Wilson’s book chapter on Sacha Baron Cohen struck from some copies

April 25, 2024

Review: In ‘Unsung Hero,’ a family’s musical success story comes to life via the clan itself

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

UK Edition Change

UK Politics
News Videos
Paris 2024 Olympics
Rugby Union
Sport Videos
John Rentoul
Mary Dejevsky
Andrew Grice
Sean O’Grady
Photography
Theatre & Dance
Culture Videos
Food & Drink
Health & Families
Royal Family
Electric Vehicles
Car Insurance deals
Lifestyle Videos
UK Hotel Reviews
News & Advice
Simon Calder
Australia & New Zealand
South America
C. America & Caribbean
Middle East
Politics Explained
News Analysis
Today’s Edition
Home & Garden
Broadband deals
Fashion & Beauty
Travel & Outdoors
Sports & Fitness
Sustainable Living
Climate Videos
Solar Panels
Behind The Headlines
On The Ground
Decomplicated
You Ask The Questions
Binge Watch
Travel Smart
Watch on your TV
Crosswords & Puzzles
Most Commented
Newsletters
Ask Me Anything
Virtual Events
Betting Sites
Online Casinos
Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

Aftersun review: An astounding first feature that captures Paul Mescal at his most heart-wrenching

Scottish filmmaker charlotte wells has made a movie that feels as if it’s teetering on the edge of a cliff, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Get our the life cinematic email for free, thanks for signing up to the the life cinematic email.

It’s difficult to think of the moments before a heartbreak and not lace them with omens. The mind, too often, moulds memories into prophecies. Colours get dialled up. Emotions solidify. It’s a hard thing to talk about, let alone visualise. That’s why Aftersun , the debut of Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, is so astounding. She’s captured the uncapturable, finding the words and images to describe a feeling that always seems to sit just beyond our comprehension.

The only way to understand memory, in any meaningful way, is perhaps on personal terms. And here, Wells has siphoned some element of autobiography into a story of her own precise crafting. Eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) is on holiday with her dad, Calum ( Paul Mescal ), at a point in the Nineties when the Macarena was at its cultural apex. It’s made clear that Calum isn’t with Sophie’s mother any more. He moved to England; they stayed in Scotland. This trip to Turkey, which Calum can barely afford, is a rare opportunity for father and daughter to be together.

Except we’re not watching these events as they were, but as they’re remembered – by an older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) under the strobe lights of a nightclub or a rave or, really, the chaotic confines of her own brain. We also see her play and replay an old VHS tape from the trip, trying to pinpoint some hidden truth that Aftersun , in a masterstroke move, never reveals. But this shared time between Sophie and Calum marked the end of… something. That much we know.

At one point, you can see the ghostly imprint of an adult Sophie in the television screen’s reflection. What terrible thing haunts her? Wells’s camera draws us gently towards the telltale signs of self-discovery. Sophie’s trip, on its surface, signalled the dwindling days of childhood naivety. Her fingers brush up against a boy’s at an arcade. She spies, through a bathroom keyhole, the gestures of an older girl as she details to her friends the handjob she gave the night before. Kids drift across each other’s paths, at pools and at play areas, finding a strange solidarity in the ritualistic nature of the package holiday.

Corio, here, movingly captures mute desperation. She shrinks down. She smiles small. It’s the hesitancy of a child who wants to show her dad that she loves him, but doesn’t quite know how. Wells draws a painful irony from the way Sophie is always in the act of documentation, snapping Polaroid photos and videoing Calum while she quizzes him. When he tells her he doesn’t want to be filmed, she says she’ll “record it in my little mind-camera” instead. But all the video footage in the world can’t give her the answers she needs. All we have to lean on is Calum’s offhand yet portentous remarks to other characters.

The Menu review: Scattershot satire, but Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy are bliss
Armageddon Time review: Trump and Reagan provide a backdrop to a flawed yet interesting family drama
The Wonder review: Florence Pugh is at home in this beguiling period drama – with a controversial beginning

For all that Aftersun can be described as gentle, contemplative and even beautiful, it’s also the kind of film that feels as if it’s teetering on the edge of a cliff. Mescal’s Calum bears the same kind of broken-down charm of his Connell in Normal People , but there are moments of sudden detachment that feel especially heart-wrenching. If only Sophie could grab that head of his and shake it until all the secrets fell out. What is it, Calum? Where has your soul been bruised? Aftersun doesn’t let us know. It doesn’t let Sophie know, either. It leaves behind a deep feeling of want, and it’s one of the most powerful emotions you’ll find in any cinema this year.

Dir: Charlotte Wells. Starring: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall. 12A, 101 minutes.

‘Aftersun’ is in cinemas from 18 November

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

My Independent Premium
Account details
Help centre

'Aftersun' review: This is the best film of the year by a first time writer-director

"Aftersun" debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and left a lasting impression.

Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio are seen in a still image taken from the official trailer of "Aftersun," only in theaters Oct. 21.

I've been thinking about "Aftersun" since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Now it's in theaters where no excuses will be accepted for you missing it. This is the best film of the year by a first time writer-director.

The Scottish newbie is Charlotte Wells, 35, and her debut is a cause for celebration. Don't expect sexual shocks or show-off effects. For Wells, the territory of the human heart is all she needs to keep us smiling, nodding in recognition and then fighting back tears.

"Aftersun" is a father-daughter story, based on Wells' life as a young girl on vacation with her dad. The time is the late 1990s when the Walkman and karaoke held sway. The place is a budget beach resort in Turkey far from Scotland where dad left her and mom to live in London.

PHOTO: Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio are seen in a still image taken from the official trailer of "Aftersun," only in theaters Oct. 21.

Looking to spend time with each other, 11-year-old Sophie (knockout newcomer Frankie Corio) and her father Calum (Paul Mescal) make memories with a camcorder that the grown and queer Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), now a parent, reflects on with sweetness and regret.

Delicate business is being transacted in this place where meaning is found in exchanged looks and the space between words. Wells can distill a life in the way an agonized Calum -- with a cast on his forearm -- smokes silently on a balcony while his daughter sleeps or pretends to.

MORE: Review: 'Anatomy of a Scandal' features exhilirating performances

Wells suggests that Calum is now dead and Sophie, in a ghostly dance, is using her childhood memories to make sense of her father in her own adulthood. That's a tall order that Wells executes with powers of observation that filmmakers twice her age might envy.

There's the sight of Sophie negotiating the treacherous turning point between childhood and adolescence. Or Calum dancing alone, lost in a strobe-lit club. As dad tells daughter, "There's this feeling, once you leave where you're from, that you don't totally belong there again."

Sophie feels a sense of abandonment magnified later when Calum, a slave to his quicksilver moods, sends her on stage by herself to do a karaoke version of "Losing My Religion" that they had planned as a duet. Wells doesn't give us details, only the sorrow eating at this young father as he vainly tries to keep the best side of himself alive for Sophie.

This would be a good time to extol the brilliant, breathtaking, soul-deep performances of Mescal and Corio that represent acting at its truest and finest. Corio was cast after a Facebook call for unknowns. And what a genuine find she is.

MORE: Review: 'The Woman King is indelible and truly inspiring

The Irish Mescal, 26, who earned an Emmy nomination and sex symbol status opposite Daisy Edgar-Jones on Hulu's "Normal People," is an extraordinary actor, as witness to his excellence even in smaller roles in "God's Country" and "The Lost Daughter." In "Aftersun," he fills a complex role with disarming charm and elemental power.

The empathy that Wells and her actors invest in these characters gives "Aftersun" the capability to sneak up and floor you. Is the film too small for awards attention? Hardly. Last year, the mesmerizing miniature that was "CODA" took home the Best Picture Oscar.

One thing is for sure: you won't be able to get "Aftersun" out of your head and heart.

clock This article was published more than 1 year ago

‘Aftersun’: A father-daughter bond, seen through a haze of memory

Paul mescal plays a troubled yet loving young father in charlotte wells’s ‘emotionally autobiographical’ directorial debut.

The fragile fabric of memory, rendered in both mist and digital media, is the subject of “Aftersun,” the assured and emotionally complex feature debut of writer-director Charlotte Wells. Wells has described her first film — a window into the loving relationship between an idealistic young father and his in-some-ways-more-worldly-wise tween daughter — as “emotionally autobiographical.”

The filmmaker’s father died when Wells was 16, the recognition of which is only hinted at in a film that — though set on a sunny father-daughter vacation at a Turkish beach resort in the late 1990s — is overshadowed by a sense of gloom, maybe even doom. But the dad we initially meet, Calum (played by Paul Mescal with a soulful, brooding melancholy that only infrequently weighs down his sweet smile), seems mostly a goofball. Gradually, though, a darker, more nuanced portrait emerges.

The action of “Aftersun” mostly takes place in traditionally staged scenes of Calum and Sophie (Frankie Corio) on holiday: chatting poolside, dining at a restaurant, relaxing in a karaoke bar. She’s just turned 11; he’s about to turn 31. But at times, we can still catch glimpses of the teenager Calum must have been when he first found out he was going to become a father. At other times, Sophie reveals the insights of a much older person, telling her father at one point that’s it’s “sort of nice” to look up and contemplate the fact that they “share the same sky,” even though they’re apart much of the time. (Sophie lives with her mother in Edinburgh, Calum in London.)

These tender scenes are intercut with home-movie camcorder footage framed as the reminiscences of an adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) looking back on her own youth and searching for clues to something she could not recognize as a girl. Though we see little of the now-grown Sophie, her reflections, making up the structure of the film itself, feel tinged with a sense of rue — and the realization that the man Sophie thought she knew as a child may not have been the man he was.

There are moments when this sense of foreboding — a sense of illusion about to fall — is leaned on a little too heavily. During one scene set in an arcade of (mostly British) tourists, we see the words “game over” flash on a video game screen. The double meaning of those words is a bit on the nose in a film that otherwise deftly avoids such easy readings. For the most part, understatement is the order of the day: Calum and Sophie’s interactions are light and breezy, clouded over only occasionally by suggestions that Calum may have money and job worries, feelings of loneliness, and perhaps more serious mood swings. These are subtly signaled by his increasing alcohol consumption.

One especially heartbreaking sequence takes place when Calum declines to join Sophie onstage for a (flat but endearing) karaoke rendition of R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” Later that night, he accidentally locks his daughter out of their hotel room, and she wakes up later to find that he has a small injury on his shoulder. It’s a series of small and seemingly meaningless incidents that, in Wells’s telling, loom large only from the vantage of hindsight.

The seemingly happiest moments of childhood, Wells seems to argue, can take on somber overtones when seen in the rearview mirror. A day at the beach is all fun and games, in other words, until the night falls, and the burn sets in.

R. At AMC’s Georgetown 14. Contains some strong language and brief sexual material. 101 minutes.

an image, when javascript is unavailable

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

Paul mescal in ‘aftersun’: film review | cannes 2022.

The ‘Normal People’ star toplines a debut feature as a young Scottish father on summer holiday with his tween daughter.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

Share this article on Facebook
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Flipboard
Share this article on Email
Show additional share options
Share this article on Linkedin
Share this article on Pinit
Share this article on Reddit
Share this article on Tumblr
Share this article on Whatsapp
Share this article on Print
Share this article on Comment

Full credits

Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Critics’ Week) Production companies: BBC Film, BFI, Screen Scotland, Tango, Pastel, Unified Theory Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall, Brooklyn Toulson, Sally Messham Director-screenwriter: Charlotte Wells Producers: Adele Romanski, Amy Jackson, Barry Jenkins, Mark Ceryak Executive producers: Eva Yates, Lizzie Francke, Kieran Hannigan, Tim Headington, Lia Buman Director of photography: Gregory Oke Production designer: Billur Turan Costume designer: Frank Gallacher Editor: Blair McClendon Music: Oliver Coates Casting: Lucy Pardee Sound design: Jovan Ajder Sales: Charades

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Janet jackson and drew barrymore reveal iconic movie roles they turned down, zendaya on why she has been “nervous” about ‘challengers’, hugh grant made an audition tape for tony the tiger role in ‘unfrosted’ that left jerry seinfeld “stunned”, ‘gabby’s dollhouse: the movie’ to get the big-screen treatment in 2025, ‘humane’ review: jay baruchel stars in caitlin cronenberg’s tense but underbaked dystopian thriller, kenneth branagh, uma thurman to voice star in charles dickens-themed ‘king of kings’ (exclusive).

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy . We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

‘Aftersun’ Review: Paul Mescal Is a Movie Dad for the Ages in Charlotte Wells’ Staggeringly Beautiful Debut

David ehrlich.

Share on Facebook
Share to Flipboard
Share on LinkedIn
Show more sharing options
Submit to Reddit
Post to Tumblr
Print This Page
Share on WhatsApp

Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2022 Telluride Film Festival. A24 releases the film in theaters on Friday, October 21.

A stunning debut that develops with the gradual poignancy of a Polaroid, Charlotte Wells ’ “ Aftersun ” isn’t just an honest movie about the way that we remember the people we’ve lost — fragmented, elusive, nowhere and everywhere all at once — it’s also a heart-stopping act of remembering unto itself. Here, in the span of an oblique but tender story that feels small enough to fit on an instant photo (or squeeze into the LCD screen of an old camcorder), Wells creates a film that gradually echoes far beyond its frames. By the time it reaches fever pitch with the greatest Freddie Mercury needle drop this side of “Wayne’s World,” “Aftersun” has begun to shudder with the crushing weight of all that we can’t leave behind, and all that we may not have known to take with us in the first place.

When Sophie (remarkable newcomer Frankie Corio , real as can be) thinks of her father, she thinks of the Turkish holiday they went on together in the late ’90s. That was the trip when she turned 11, and Calum — played by “Normal People” breakout Paul Mescal , who makes a premature leap into dad roles with tremendous poise and a triggering sense of parental mystery — turned 32. Some kids at their rundown hotel assumed they were siblings, and now they would be about the same age.

As an adult who we only see in glimpses, Sophie rewatches the MiniDV footage that she and Calum recorded on that vacation, eagerly scanning the standard-definition video in search of the clues that a child might have missed. Clues to what? It doesn’t matter.

The eerily objective home videos and the semi-imagined 35mm scenes that “Aftersun” wraps around them both suggest that Calum was struggling with a demon of one stripe or another, and that he was doing his best to hide that struggle from his daughter during their too-rare time together, but Wells denies us the details. Like Sophie, all we can do is sift for meaning amidst the rubble and hope to fill in the haunted spaces between the man she knew and the man she lost.

We tend to think of memories as crystallized moments of time, loosely strung together along the trellises of a drooping chandelier somewhere deep within our mind. And yet, personal experience tells us that our pasts are composed from an infinite swirl of different sources — real and invented — each of them crudely sewn together with the same desperation that our sleeping brains might arrange a billion random neurons into a semi-coherent dream.

Some of those sources are soft as ghosts, and likewise change shape in the shadows. Others are much harder, as still and tactile as a rug on the floor. Both can be evocative, but neither are enough to connect all the dots; not when you’re trying to re-trace someone you loved from the vague silhouette they left behind.

All these years later — an entire lifetime since the tan she got in Turkey faded back into freckled white — Sophie has only grown more desperate to see what the home videos from that trip will never show her. As if by osmosis, we intuit that she’s haunted by the feeling that some ineffable part of herself will always remain just out of reach, like the patch of skin between her boney pre-teen shoulders where Calum had to apply the sunscreen for her. We sense that she re-watches the camcorder footage in the desperate, keening hope that her dad might be able to show it to her in time to save her from it. And we sense that she does this because she never saw him again.

Wells’ ingenious construction allows “Aftersun” to unfold from a dual perspective that seems to filter it through the eyes of an adult and a child at the same time. We look for discrepancies, scanning the screen for answers to questions that we don’t even know to ask yet until even the film’s most banal images seem rife with secrets. Wells’ camera sometimes lingers on her characters during the kind of private moments when they suppose no one can see them, as if the film itself is goading us into assuming the worst. Gregory Oke’s fuzzy and tactile cinematography suggests a more sensitive read, its gossamer textures recalling the work of Lance Acord in a movie that often feels like a platonic riff on “Lost in Translation.”

Calum has a cast on his arm, but claims that he doesn’t remember how he hurt it. He calls Sophie “poppett,” and talks to his daughter with a guarded intimacy that makes it hard to say if he’s trying to keep her safe from the world or protect her from himself. Calum smokes on the balcony of their hotel room after she falls asleep, standing on the other side of a glass screen door. Sometimes he practices tai chi when he’s in the room by himself, his body obscured from the camera by a bathroom wall. At one point we see him spit at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Is this what he was doing when Sophie was out making silly little videos on her dad’s camera?

Sometimes Sophie wears a “NO FEAR” hat, just one of the many impeccable period details in a film so precise about its point in time that it seems to take place at the exact moment when the “Macarena” was transitioning from “best part of the party” to “begrudging obligation” (a cringe-inducing karaoke scene in the second half of the movie is set to a period-appropriate track too perfect to spoil). Sophie plays with a group of older kids she meets at the pool and clearly delights in the thrilling autonomy of doing older kid stuff, but she’s never the least bit disinterested in hanging out with her dad.

There’s so much about Calum that she’s desperate to understand without asking, so we hang onto his every word in much the same way. We eavesdrop on his phone call with Sophie’s mother in order to figure out that they’re separated but on sweet terms, we listen as he talks (flirts?) with a scuba instructor, and we dissect the tone of his voice when he talks about “the pretty teacher” at Sophie’s school to hear if that sounds as honest.

Sophie jumps at the rare moments when Calum reveals himself to her, filing away precious bits of information for later that week, unaware that she’ll be holding on to them for decades longer. A pained confession about forgotten birthdays pays off several times over, leading to an indelible fade-out that crystallizes how this immensely powerful movie sneaks up on you in plain sight.

Some of that power can be credited to the masterstroke of how Wells ties her story together — “Aftersun” arriving at a sublime ending that exists in a liminal space between memory and imagination that every viewer will have to locate for themselves — but none of it would be possible without the real and instant sense of intimacy that she helps create between her two lead actors. Hardly a single moment feels didactic or instructive or reverse-engineered from the movie that Sophie might want to make about this trip one day; even after watching “Aftersun” four times, I’m still not sure if time will help Sophie come to a better understanding of who her dad was, or if their holiday was the last age when they could possibly have been as honest with each other as they were.

Wells’ film is able to follow its characters through the strobe light of lost time because Mescal and Corio make it so tempting for us to complete their performances for them — to fill in the gaps with the same urgency that we might want to close our own. Few movies have ever ended with a more tempting invitation to do something impossible, but “Aftersun” is so unforgettable because of the agonizing beauty it finds in the futile act of trying.

I often think of the wonderful scene in which Sophie tries to interview Calum on camera, only for her dad to clam up and make her shut it off. “Fine,” she says, “I’ll just record it in my little mind camera.” She doesn’t know it at the time, but it’s a lens she’ll be looking through for the rest of her life; it’s where we look for the people we love when there’s nowhere else to find them.

“Aftersun” premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, and was reviewed from the 2022 Telluride Film Festival. A24 will release it in theaters on Friday, October 21.

Most Popular

‘Aftersun’ Review: A Father, a Daughter, and Things Left Unsaid

By K. Austin Collins

K. Austin Collins

Billie eilish would like to reintroduce herself, team trump is ready to lose the supreme court immunity case. they’re celebrating, taylor swift and jack antonoff have reached their limit, kanye west announces 'yeezy porn' amid reports of adult film company, ‘all of us strangers’: inside the year’s most haunting love story, ‘all of us strangers’: paul mescal and andrew scott’s ghostly love story will break your heart, ridley scott is terrified of ai: ‘it’s a technical hydrogen bomb’, editor’s picks, the 250 greatest guitarists of all time, the 500 greatest albums of all time, the 50 worst decisions in movie history, every awful thing trump has promised to do in a second term, '9 to 5' remake in the works from jennifer aniston.

way to make a living
By Daniel Kreps

Harvey Weinstein Survivors Saddened by Overturned NY Conviction: ‘Disappointing for All of Us’

'Shocked'
By Nancy Dillon

'Hollywood Con Queen': See First Trailer for Docuseries About Scam That Shocked the Film Industry

'baby reindeer' is tv's latest tortured-poet show.

Truth Be Told
By Alan Sepinwall

Sacha Baron Cohen Passages Redacted From Rebel Wilson's Memoir in U.K.

By Emily Zemler

Most Popular

Anne hathaway says 'gross' chemistry test in the 2000s required her to make out with 10 guys: that's the 'worst way to do it' and 'now we know better', 'the lord of the rings' trilogy returning to theaters, remastered and extended, sources claim hugh jackman’s worrying behavior may have something to do with his breakup, first queen elizabeth ii memorial statue unveiled, with a smile and three corgis, in england, you might also like, ‘we’re here’ drag queens on why ‘frightening’ safety concerns didn’t stop them from filming in small towns: ‘it’s important to uplift people’, patrick mahomes’ wife brittany sparkles in statement crystal top and voluminous maxi skirt by sau lee at time 100 gala 2024, the best yoga mats for any practice, according to instructors, the 20 best comic book tv shows of all time, ranked, ncaa names nil registry partner after five-year process.

Verify it's you

Please log in.

Discount Codes

‘Aftersun’ review: Paul Mescal hits new heights in the best British movie this year

His latest is a moody, melancholic rumination on parenthood and the passage of time

W hat happens when you become a father before you’re really ready? That’s one question bubbling away underneath Aftersun , the distinct debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, starring Normal People ’s Paul Mescal. He plays Calum, who is trying to connect with his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) when they go on holiday to a Turkish resort. No longer with Sophie’s mother, he’s barely out of his twenties. “Can’t see myself being 40,” he remarks. “Surprised I made it to 30.”

Read more: Aftersun ending explained: breaking down one of the year’s best film scenes

It’s the mid-’90s, although time is very elastic in Aftersun . As Sophie mucks around in the amusement arcades in their resort, flashbacks to Calum’s own hedonistic youth (which coincided with the rave explosion) slip into the film. Meanwhile, wrapping around this are scenes of an adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) sifting through old home video footage of their break in Turkey, reflecting on her relationship with her oft-absent father.

Despite an underlying melancholia, Calum’s aiming for self-improvement as he gets older. In his luggage are books on Tai Chi and meditation. And for all their differences, he and Sophie communicate. She tells him about kissing Michael, a boy she meets on the holiday, and Calum encourages her to speak to him about anything. Even when it comes to drugs. “I’ve done it all and you can too,” he says, in what might be either be very modern parenting or a disaster waiting to happen.

Just as in any family, there are issues lurking beneath the surface. In the film’s most awkward scene, Sophie sings R.E.M. ’s ‘Losing My Religion’ in a karaoke bar at the resort; Calum refuses to join her, then offers to pay for her to have singing lessons when they get back home. Don’t make the offer if you don’t have the money, she replies – clearly stung in the past by broken promises. Guilt, on Calum’s side, slides around this story like a squirt of suncream.

While Mescal and newcomer Corio forge a tight bond on screen – they even get mud baths, in what might be the cutest father-daughter moment this year – it’s the way Wells depicts conversations that really leaves the strongest impression. One sequence, as they talk while sitting on the hotel bed, plays out entirely with the camera trained on the switched-off screen of the room’s TV, reflecting their image in the blackness of the tube.

It’s moments like these that create the film’s intense intimacy, exactly as Wells intended – as if we’re sneaking a look at some discarded home movie footage. Similarly dreamy is the soundtrack, with ’90s tracks flooding our ears ( All Saints ’ ‘Never Ever’, Chumbawamba ’s ‘Tubthumping’ and Catatonia ’s ‘Road Rage’ all get an airing). Best of all, Blur ’s ‘Tender’ – a song whose title rather sums up the feelings Aftersun evokes – arrives, warped and woozy in a distorted version.

Liable to increase the cult around Mescal, following his BAFTA-winning turn in Normal People , Aftersun may be small in scale, but it leaves a distinct and lasting impression. No question, it’s the best British movie this year.

Director: Charlotte Wells
Starring: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall
Release date: November 18 (in cinemas)
Related Topics
Chumbawamba

The Gorgeous Melancholy of Aftersun

Calum is a young dad, young enough that when he’s out with 11-year-old Sophie (Francesca Corio), people assume that they’re siblings rather than a parent and child. Someone makes this mistake not long into Aftersun , and you half expect Calum to let it pass uncommented on, or to be embarrassed when he has to explain the truth. He is, after all, played by the irresistible Paul Mescal, prince of the charming, unreliable heartthrobs, and with his rumpled looks and empty pockets, he comes across as someone more at home carousing with his boys at the bar than periodically reapplying sunscreen to his daughter’s back to ensure that she doesn’t burn. And yet Calum, for all the other ways that things have not been working out the way he planned, is proud to announce that he’s Sophie’s father, and proud to be taking her on a vacation he can’t really afford to a discount beach resort in Turkey. Aftersun , the debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, is a dual portrait of a girl on the cusp of adolescence and a young man feeling adrift in adulthood, and it’s a work of masterful and almost unbearable melancholy.

It’s one of the best movies of the year, though it damn well makes you work for it, with Wells taking such a deliberately oblique approach to her premise that it at first comes across more as an affectation than as subtlety. Aftersun is made up almost entirely of the trip in question, which, we soon grasp, took place two decades ago, though it’s pointedly only Sophie, played as an adult by Celia Rowlson-Hall, who we get to see in flashes in the present day. It’s frequently Sophie who’s shooting the crummy digital video footage we periodically cut to, the lower resolution and artifacting as much a signpost of the era as the soundtrack, which is littered with late ‘90s detritus from the Lightning Seeds, Catatonia, and Aqua. She and Calum — who broke up with her mother years ago — turn the camera to the sun and the pool, but more often they point it at one another, and in the opening shot Sophie has trained the lens on her father in order to interview him, asking him if this is what he imagined he’d be doing when he was her age.

She doesn’t seem to realize how this question devastates him, though it becomes clear when the film returns to this moment later and shows it from the outside. Calum’s planned this holiday over his 31st birthday, which may not be a major milestone, but for someone who jokes about being surprised he made it to 30, represents a panicky forward trudge of time with little to show for it aside from the funny, self-assured daughter he doesn’t get to see much. But Calum’s depression remains an only half-glimpsed mystery, the shots of him reflected in a television screen and a coffee table surface serving as visual reminders of his elusive nature. There comes a moment when you start to actually comprehend your parents as people separate from yourself, ones whose lives stretched long before your arrival and contain vast unseen realms. Sophie, who’s played with such unaffected ease by Corio that she doesn’t seem to be acting at all, may not be there yet, not any more than she is one of the teenagers she hangs out with one evening. But she’s close enough to sense what she doesn’t yet know, in the same way that she playacts romance with a boy from the arcade after watching the older kids canoodle, the two sharing an tentative open-eyed kiss.

Tiny details like that have submerged but seismic resonances throughout Aftersun . That experimental peck is the start of years of exploration that will lead to Sophie, at 31 herself, to be in a relationship with a woman with whom she has a baby. A stack of books about meditation and tai chi are indications of Calum’s search for meaning. Calum left Scotland, where Sophie lives with her mother, for a life drifting around London, and when she asks him if he’ll ever move back, he gives her an answer that doubles as a description of his psychic state: “There’s this feeling, once you leave where you’re from, that you don’t totally belong there again.” In the closest this delicate film has to a pivotal sequence, Sophie puts their names on a list to sing karaoke in what’s clearly been a tradition for them before, though this time Calum’s not in the mood, and so Sophie goes up alone, her bravado fading as she slogs her solitary way through a rendition of “Losing My Religion.” Throughout Aftersun , Mescal is a marvel of boyish fun masking a deep streak of self-loathing he tries mightily to hide from his daughter, but in that sequence, as Sophie stands there discovering insecurity in real time, he’s easy to hate.

Neither could articulate why they’re so upset, though the night spirals from there, Calum leaving his daughter and getting drunk in an abdication of parental duties he’s otherwise proven himself devoted to. Aftersun isn’t a recreation of a memory, though the act of remembering is obviously at its core. Rather, it’s about trying to square the intimacy of being cared for as a child with the perspective that comes with being an adult. It’s about wanting to reach across time, and to meet a loved one in an impossible space where, for once, you’re both on the same level, and you can finally understand them for who they are — or who they were.

More Movie Reviews

Anyone But You Has More Sex on Its Mind Than Your Average Rom-Com
An Exploited Neighborhood, Seen Through Children’s Eyes
Challengers Is Almost a Sexy Movie
movie review
paul mescal
charlotte wells
new york magazine

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

What is your email.

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

Lower case letters (a-z)
Upper case letters (A-Z)
Numbers (0-9)
Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

For Parents
For Educators
Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

Get the app
Movie Reviews
Best Movie Lists
Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best TV Lists
Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
Common Sense Selections for TV
Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

Book Reviews
Best Book Lists
Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Game Reviews
Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

Podcast Reviews
Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

App Reviews
Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

YouTube Channel Reviews
YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

Explaining the News to Our Kids

Family Tech Planners
Digital Skills
All Articles
Latino Culture
Black Voices
Asian Stories
Native Narratives
LGBTQ+ Pride
Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Nostalgic drama studies depression; smoking, some language.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The importance of managing trauma and grief and al

Calum is a good father. He is flawed, damaged, and

The film only really has two characters of note, a

Suicide is a theme in the movie. It's suggested th

Two teens are shown kissing passionately. A young

Occasional use of the word "f--k" as well as "arse

Characters order specific drinks such as Coca-Cola

Set on a holiday resort, people are shown drinking

Positive Messages

The importance of managing trauma and grief and allowing memories, both good and bad, to help shape who we are today.

Positive Role Models

Calum is a good father. He is flawed, damaged, and suffering from depression, but he cares for his daughter, Sophie. He makes mistakes, such as neglecting her one night, leaving her to fend for herself in a foreign country. But on this occasion he's not himself. Sophie is both independent, pensive, and curious. She tries to live a full life, finding some kind of peace and understanding about what happened to her as a child.

Diverse Representations

The film only really has two characters of note, a father and a daughter. They're both White, and holidaying in Turkey so many supporting characters are of Middle Eastern descent, and we get a sense for the culture they are living within. Mental health issues in men are explored. A character is gay, which is not a plot-point, just presented as a matter-of-fact.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Suicide is a theme in the movie. It's suggested that a character takes their own life. A character becomes separated from their parent.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two teens are shown kissing passionately. A young character shares their first kiss with someone of the same age. Two strangers are also seen kissing. A character's naked behind is briefly shown.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Occasional use of the word "f--k" as well as "arse." A character gives the middle finger to another.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Characters order specific drinks such as Coca-Cola and Fanta.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Set on a holiday resort, people are shown drinking beer and wine. Teens are seen doing shots. A child tries a sip of their parent's beer. The same parent talks about drugs with their child, hoping to create a safe space for them to have a dialogue about it as they get older. People are seen smoking cigarettes and shisha. One character picks up a lit cigarette from the ground after someone drops it on the floor.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Aftersun is a slow-burning but brilliantly moving drama that focuses on mental health in men -- with themes around suicide -- and a daughter dealing with a difficult past. Sophie is independent as a child (Frankie Corio), and reflective as an adult (Celia Rowlson-Hall). Her father, Calum ( Paul Mescal ), is a good father, but he is a flawed one. He makes mistakes, such as leaving her locked out of the room one night on their holiday in Turkey. Turkish culture is explored in an affectionate way, from the blissful perspective of tourists. People are shown smoking shisha and cigarettes. Characters also drink alcohol, with teens drinking to excess. Even a child tries a sip of beer. Drugs and alcohol are discussed, fleetingly, between Calum and Sophie as he hopes to create an open dialogue and safe space for her as she gets older. There is kissing and a male character's bare behind is seen in one scene. "F--k" is heard on occasion, as is "arse." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

Parents say (2)
Kids say (4)

Based on 2 parent reviews

A beautiful movie suitable for older kids, but likely will bore them

What's the story.

AFTERSUN follows Calum ( Paul Mescal ) and his daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) as they take a holiday to Turkey, a trip that will live with the latter forever. Twenty years later, on her birthday, Sophie finds footage causing her to reflect and ponder on the experiences she had that shaped her, for better or for worse.

Is It Any Good?

This profoundly emotional drama is one of the most assured, confident debut productions from a first-time filmmaker you're likely to see. From Aftersun 's very opening frame, Charlotte Wells knows exactly the story she is telling, and has complete power over the narrative. With this control, she takes the viewer on a quite staggeringly moving journey. It's a voyage through time and memories, studying how we reflect and remember times past to try and reconcile where we are now, and those we have loved (and lost).

The film delivers emphatically on two counts, as you connect in equal measure to both Calum, a 30-something father and Sophie, a 10-year-old girl. Calum shows the complexities of the human mind and the challenges that come with it. While Sophie's journey is one of nostalgic, hazy childhood memories. Fueling that nostalgia is a superb soundtrack. But what helps illuminate this production are the two central performances. Mescal is as good as he's ever been, and the young Corio is a revelation as Sophie. This isn't just one of the best films of the year, it's one of the best films in years.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how depression is portrayed in Aftersun . Did you find it unusual to see mental health issues in men addressed like this? Why, or why not? What are your own experiences when it comes to mental health?

Discuss the relationship between Calum and Sophie. Did it seem like a healthy father-daughter relationship? Why, or why not?

The movie is about looking back on the past. How do you feel when you look back at certain events from your life?

Talk about the strong language used in the movie. Did it seem necessary or excessive? What did it contribute to the movie?

How did the film depict drinking and smoking ? Were they glamorized? Did the characters need to do these things to look cool? What were the consequences ?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 21, 2022
On DVD or streaming : January 23, 2023
Cast : Paul Mescal , Frankie Corio , Celia Rowlson-Hall
Director : Charlotte Wells
Studio : A24
Genre : Drama
Topics : Holidays
Character Strengths : Curiosity
Run time : 102 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : some language and brief sexual material
Last updated : January 29, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Saving Mr. Banks

Best father-daughter movies, drama movies that tug at the heartstrings, related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Movie reviews, Oscar predictions, and more!

‘Aftersun’ is a masterpiece of memory | review and analysis

Aftersun follows the childhood memory of a girl on vacation with her father to the turkish coast. but where there’s sun there is also shadow..

Aftersun is one of the greatest depictions of depression and grief captured on film as it meditates on childhood, parenthood, and memory. Beautifully wrought with cinematography and score that play like a memory on loop. As the movie comes to its stunningly satisfying and emotional conclusion—perhaps one of the greatest final moments of a movie I’ve seen in some time—we’re taught that opening that box might be a means to an end. A means to heal the burn that memories can leave.

You might also like: Past Lives , The Worst Person in the World

Do you know that lethargic feeling after sitting in the sun on a hot summer day? Or the melancholic daze that follows you home after a perfect vacation? Do you get blotches in your vision after looking into a bright light or staring up at the sun? All those sensations perfectly described Charlotte Wells’ debut feature Aftersun , which feels like the perfect term to encapsulate each of those feelings. And that is what the whole movie is: a feeling. For its largely plotless 96-minute runtime nothing really happens in front of you. But rest assured, there’s plenty happening in the shadows of the sunny father-daughter beach holiday at the center of the movie.

Wells presents Aftersun as a childhood memory flashing into the mind of a girl 20 years later—when she’s the same age as her father at the time. But as with any memory, things look different in retrospect.

In the early 90s, young father Calum ( Normal People ’s Paul Mescal ) brings his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (played as a child by Francesca Corio , a real festival breakout) on a sleepy summer vacation on the Turkish coast. Gregory Oke’s dreamy cinematography simultaneously underlines the sunny haziness of a beachy summer and the soft edges of memory. In between days lounging at the pool, trips to the resort’s restaurant, and interactions with the other guests, we see interstitial clips from home video of the trip filmed by either Sophie or Calum. It’s in those clips—and interruptions often taking place at night while Sophie is asleep—that we sense there’s more meaning and heaviness in this vacation for Calum.

Those feelings only come in waves though. We never see Calum being less than a devoted (and goofy) father to Sophie, almost a complete juxtaposition to the view we have of the usual young parent—sometimes he’s even mistaken for her brother. Sophie, as a child, sees him as nothing less than an invincible infallible hero—how many of us see our parents. Her childlike wonder extends to the world around her as she becomes enamored with a group of older kids—a bit of a nod to the typical coming-of-age story, of which Aftersun is decidedly not. However, that wonder also leads to conflict when Sophie’s frank questions lead to revealing that not all is great and perfect in the background of Calum’s life. At the moment, she thinks nothing of them. However, when adult Sophie looks back at the same clips we’re watching, they play very differently. Like videos taken before a coming disaster.

Oculus Movie Review — A Stylish, Well-Acted Psychological Horror

Memories always have their blind spots. You remember the bright moments while blocking out the darker ones. It’s not until you look back and unpack them as an adult that you see their profundity.

31-year-old Sophie ( Celia Rowlson-Hall ), who we cut to for short moments throughout the movie, is the same age as her father when they went on that vacation. As she remembers the bright spots—the late night karaoke, her first kiss, her dad clumsily juggling bread rolls at dinner—the darker ones slip in as well. Or, at the very least, she fills them in—her dad crying in the middle of the night, his quiet swaying while smoking a cigarette on the balcony, his muffled contentious phone calls back home. However, the movie never lingers on those moments—like adult Sophie is trying to keep them out of her perfect vision of that summer vacation. The same way that we exclude the awkward pauses at an otherwise lovely dinner or the arguments heard through walls late at night after you went to bed in our memories. You keep the good and avoid the bad until you can no longer stand the weight of the past.

It’s difficult to describe Aftersun because nothing and everything is happening at the same time. Though what’s happening on screen may seem mundane, it’s drenched in subtext. For those that aren’t looking in the right places, the movie might be tedious to get through.

Aftersun is about many things, but at its core it’s about the blindspots of our memories and traumas—and how we fill them in to make them whole again.

Our parents try to create the best childhood for us. Short of that, they at least try to create the best version of those memories for you, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It’s why nostalgia exists and why some memories float to the surface while others burrow themselves deep into our psyches. Charlotte Wells uses Aftersun to show us what it’s like to unlock that box that we all keep away in a hidden dark corner of our minds. What it’s like to admit that our perfect childhood memories are just afterimages of the brightest moments. As the movie comes to its stunningly satisfying and emotional conclusion fittingly underscored by Queen’s “Under Pressure”—perhaps one of the greatest final moments of a movie I’ve seen in some time—we’re taught that opening that box might be a means to an end. A means to heal the burn that memories can leave.

More movies, less problems

Mike Faist, Zendaya, and Josh O'Connor in Challengers. Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.

Hey! I’m Karl . You can find me on Twitter here . I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic .

💌 Sign up for our weekly email newsletter with movie recommendations available to stream.

Karl Delossantos

Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.

Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 12 Years A Slave Movie Review — A Beautiful, Unflinching Film
Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Nominations: Snubs and Surprises
Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Picture (Updated 2/16)
Karl Delossantos https://smashcutreviews.com/author/karldelogmail-com/ 2014 Oscar Predictions: Best Director (Is Alfonso Cuarón a Lock to Win?)

Ana Maria Toro

Freelance graphic designer interested in the little nook between art and research, and the vast world between observing and writing about it.

Ana Maria Toro https://smashcutreviews.com/author/anamtoro27/ 'When You Finish Saving The World' | Sundance review
Ana Maria Toro https://smashcutreviews.com/author/anamtoro27/ 'Master' is a modern-day Giallo horror | Sundance review
Ana Maria Toro https://smashcutreviews.com/author/anamtoro27/ A Playlist Inspired by 'Call Me By Your Name'
Ana Maria Toro https://smashcutreviews.com/author/anamtoro27/ Past Lives Analysis: Romance, Race and Regret

International edition
Australia edition
Europe edition

‘People want the connection between artist and art to be so strong. I do wish it could be completely anonymous’ … Charlotte Wells.

Charlotte Wells on Aftersun, The Guardian’s best film of the year: ‘The grief expressed is mine’

The Scottish director discusses the impact and autobiography of her debut film, about a father (Paul Mescal) and daughter (Frankie Corio) on holiday in the late 1990s

Peter Bradshaw on why Aftersun is the best film of the year

Why do you think the film has had such an impact on people? I don’t know. Cannes [where the film premiered] was such a shock. The response was wholly unexpected, both for what it was and because I had never considered what it might be. Which is a naivete I will only have this once and feel so grateful for. We had just been rushing to get to the finish line. We’d spoken a lot in the edit room about the film’s legibility and how it might connect with audiences, but without any thought to what that meant. We never considered what the critical response would be. I don’t think we ever thought very many people would see the film, which was a reasonable expectation.

Does it speak to an audience hunger for films that aren’t too prescriptive? That would be nice if that were true. One thing that struck me was the second we finished screening in Cannes, this young man came up to me and shared his own and his mother’s experience with depression. And it was so striking.

Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in Aftersun.

The film is certainly open, and I have seen people bring many different kinds of experiences to it, but that was certainly an unintended expression – yet it was so immediately legible to this young man. It meant so much that it connected that personally and so specifically. There is an openness and language around mental health in younger people that didn’t exist when I was a teenager.

After another screening, somebody who probably doesn’t watch films like this very often said: “Where I’m from, there’s a saying: ‘Why do young men die? Because they want to.’” The film connected with him in a way that felt like it reached way beyond like an arthouse film legibility to something far more raw. Those are always the most meaningful responses, where they elicit some kind of recognition in people that is nothing to do with film.

Yet for all the universality out of specificity, there are very fundamental themes that a lot of people can connect with, and a core parental relationship that I don’t think is unique. Even if the one portrayed on screen [between a young father, Calum, and his daughter, Sophie] is one less often portrayed on screen.

I read too much about the film; it’s not good. People try to box it in, in terms of distributor or the support that I received. But I wasn’t necessarily thinking about the form conforming to anything other than pursuing which films interested me. So its accessibility has been a really nice surprise.

I always want to make films that way. I think you have to chase what interests you. I don’t think about making films for other people. Which isn’t to say you don’t consider the audience, but consciously trying to cater to other people while using it as a medium of self-expression seems a dangerous path to walk.

Do you think the ubiquity of video today changes how people will remember their parents?

Yes. I don’t have any video of my dad at all. I have a torso on an hour’s worth of digital video playing chess. All of our heads are framed out of screen because the chess board is more interesting. I think that’s kind of perfect in its own horribly sad way. My generation has more than the generation before, and this current generation record more than ever. And yet sometimes I still forget to point the camera at things that you might wish you had later on. I don’t think that feeling necessarily would ever change, of always reaching for something you don’t quite have. The feeling of chasing somebody lost.

Wells, second right, with her Aftersun cast and crew at the British Independent Film Awards.

It was interesting watching Frankie [Corio, 11, who plays Sophie] interact with the camcorder physically, because it had the same curiosity for her that it had for me at that age, but just coming from a completely different point of view. It was so limiting in a way for her, whereas for me, it felt of infinite possibility.

And I think people who had memorable experiences at the point when the film takes place and who have records on that same type of media and a relationship to seeing that kind of footage may have the strongest connection to the film.

How have you navigated the sudden interest in your own life story?

I’m enjoying this conversation, which like makes me vulnerable to being too honest. It’s been difficult to navigate and I start to question what autobiography even means. I suppose I like to put Aftersun in a “personal film-making” bucket.

I enjoyed figuring out the film as a story and making choices that served a film. And I enjoyed figuring out who these characters were, that were unquestionably based on myself and my dad, and our character traits were the basis of Callum and Sophie’s character traits. But at the same time, I like film-making and in this script it was always about serving this film.

It’s funny hearing people describe it as my memory because that it truly is not. The events that were in the script that were closely based on a conversation or an interaction – many of them aren’t in the final film. I think that’s because I am keen to serve the film and not my own past and whatever I’m exorcising with my own past is still the core of the film. The emotion of the film and the grief expressed is mine. And that’s a really easy thing to admit because, as I said, this to me was a form of expression and that is what I was ultimately expressing.

But in terms of: did this happen, or was I on this holiday? The answer is no. I’ve started to push more against autobiography, the more I see people inclined to draw a one-to-one relationship between me and the film. It’s difficult. I have that impulse too. When you watch something, you immediately look up: is this the creator? But I have a very different take on that impulse now. A lot of work went into this as a film, and that work is often discounted by saying: this is just what happened.

You’ve said that film can express feelings in a way words and still images cannot. There’s an amazing moment in the film in which a Polaroid develops; h ave you looked into the psychology and chemistry of what moving images do to the brain?

No. But I’m interested in how different forms of art best communicate different things. I think there’s like an immense power in a photograph and in a song and in a painted portrait or prose. Which is why I keep reading unadaptable books, like The Comforters by Muriel Spark . I can’t help think about adaptation, but only want to be reading things that probably shouldn’t be adapted.

Sometimes I feel frustrated by how much emotion can be communicated in a still photograph or a three-and-a-half minute song, when you have to work so hard to get to that amount of feeling in film over 90 minutes. But I do think it allows for something else. Combining music, sound and picture allows you to do a lot of contradictory things at the same time. And I’m interested in contradictory things: people and emotions. I think there’s something in film that allows you to just use all of these layers and tools at your disposal to express something a bit more messy.

Which films have moved you in the way people have been moved by yours?

There were a few documentaries that we were watching leading up to production: Silence Is a Falling Body , which mostly uses DV footage a woman found of her father after he died. That’s phenomenal. Terence Davies’s trilogy . Chantel Akerman I adore, especially News from Home . Edward Yang.

Murmur of the Hearts by Sylvia Chang was the last film that I sobbed at in the way that people describe sobbing at this film. It has a dream ghost-type sequence for a departed parent. I saw that in the midst of writing this and was inconsolable.

In terms of sucker punch, when I saw Carol , Todd Haynes’s film, I knew nothing about it going in and hadn’t read the book. There was something in that film that I had never seen before. I was really, really unexpectedly moved. It was like seeing something of myself on screen that I hadn’t expressed.

Do you find people who have lost a parent are more moved by Aftersun?

I think so. I see so many readings on the film and I’m very reluctant to invalidate them because the core expression is kind of similar, regardless of your take. But I think there is one line through the film that is closer to mine, and I think that’s the one.

Does the power of film ever frighten you?

Lots about this frightens me at the moment, quite frankly. I made Aftersun in a vacuum with my friends and then it reaches people and makes them feel strongly. It’s very weird being a physical player in that. People want the connection between artist and art to be so strong. I do wish it could be completely anonymous in some ways. It’s very hard to imagine making another film right now.

Best films 2022
Mental health
Parents and parenting

Comments (…)

'Aftersun' Review: Paul Mescal Mesmerizes in Charlotte Wells’ Feature Debut

One of the most sublime films of the year so far reflects on how our memories, no matter how much we hold on to them, can be lost to time.

This review was originally part of our 2022 Toronto International Film Festival coverage .

There are some films that manage to so thoroughly bring to life the fragments of memory that you feel as though you are reflecting on your own life along with it. Aftersun , the stunning debut feature from writer-director Charlotte Wells , is one such work. While clearly reflective about the past and the way we recall it as we move into the future, there is an enduring quality to it that ensures it is a film that will echo in your mind for time eternal.

The film places us with the young Sophie ( Frankie Corio ) who is on a holiday to Turkey with her father Calum ( Paul Mescal ). It is just the two of them though this seems to largely suit each just fine as they initially alternate between moments of peaceful relaxation and joyous play. However, their time is limited as no vacation away can last forever even when we may wish it to. Sophie, in her smart and silly way, has begun to sharply observe the world around her. She is at the age where much is still new though in a way that she can start to make sense of. Much of this includes her father who, despite the way he tries to keep closed off, is frequently struck by sudden moments of darkness. The film is filtered through the eyes of Sophie who clearly cares for her father though is not sure about what to make of a young man who is plainly troubled. He is not an unkind person, just one who is deeply uncertain about himself and what role he will have as a father while still trying to determine his own life.

There is a quietly profound poetry to seeing this all play out as the film feels both endlessly patient yet effortlessly poised. Each scene between the father and daughter feels so completely lived in, making for an experience where you begin to forget you are watching a movie as opposed to just two people sharing a moment together. There is so much to get immersed in as the details of every moment are overwhelming and minimalistic.

RELATED: Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal Cast in 'Strangers' Adaptation

It shows that a simple story can sing precisely because of how it finds beauty in the everyday. The dialogue is so natural yet no less resonant as we get to see Mescal bring all the haunting nuances of Calum out. There is something that is weighing heavily on him, which the film keeps hidden as he does from his daughter, making for a complex cocktail of a character. He can turn on a dime, going from being more charming and comedic to somber with a subtle change in expression. One moment Calum takes alone to himself shows just how broken he is despite all his gentle bravado he puts forth. Despite all the challenges that can come from being a child actor, Corio also never misses a single beat in a dynamic debut performance.

There is a tragedy to everything as we feel just how fleeting this time Calum and Sophie get to share really is. At one point, she wonders aloud why they don’t just stay here and spend their days jumping around from place to place. It is an innocent line, almost a throwaway, but it brings with it a devastating impact. There are countless moments like this as every conversation, even the ones about ordinary topics, feel precious in a way that we can’t always put our finger on. The entire experience is besought by a looming sense of loss, as if this entire time is one that will inevitably slip through our fingers forever.

Much of this comes from how the film makes use of recurring home videos, often playing out in extended sequences as the two talk together. Sophie seems aware of the sadness that is swallowing up her father and wants to ask him about it, though often lacks the precise words to do so. By capturing these moments, she seems to want to make them into memories that will allow her to better understand them later. It creates slices of life in what is already a slim slice-of-life picture, as if it is carving away less and less from the time that only so much of can be preserved. They are both clinging to moments in their lives that can only last so long.

There is an almost dreamlike quality to much of the film, especially in the glimpses we get of Calum where he is removed from the main setting. We only catch every other frame as he appears to be in a club of some kind with a strobe light leaving him frozen in time. This all is increasingly affecting the more it is used and in how it becomes incorporated by the end. The way music is overlaid in one particular concluding sequence cuts through all the liminality of time and space. It becomes a sensory experience that is evocative yet precise, making clear just how in command of everything Wells remains. The editing is also magnificent, maintaining movement in a way that is as mesmerizing as it is melancholic.

There is an audacity to much of the way it all shifts into being more emotionally ephemeral, but there is no better way to capture the elusive emotional states being expressed. The way the visuals all dance across the screen in flashes of brilliance that strip away the barriers between form and feeling until they become one is nothing short of spectacular. This could easily leave some reeling, but it serves as a cinematic embrace that has the power to squeeze the breath out of you until there is nothing left. It washes over you, hitting you with wave after wave of vibrancy until it subsequently pulls the rug out from under you. What remains is a work of remembrance, overflowing with all the joys and pains to be found in looking back, that shows just how tenuous our connection to the past can really be. After all is said and done, it is films like Aftersun that will stand the test of time long after we are gone.

Aftersun is now on vod.

WATCH ON VOD

Stranger Things Season 5
Deadpool and Wolverine
The Batman 2
Spider-Man 4
Yellowstone Season 6
Fallout Season 2
Entertainment

Aftersun review: a tender, heart-wrenching memory piece

“Anchored by a stunning lead performance from Paul Mescal, Aftersun is one of the year's most moving and unique movies.”

Charlotte Wells' gentle, observant visual style
Paul Mescal's performance
An unforgettable final 5 minutes
An overly languid pace
A meandering second act

Charlotte Wells’ directorial debut, Aftersun , is an open-hearted, tender piece of filmmaking. It crackles and vibrates with the same kind of lived-in intimacy that has defined the works of filmmakers like Richard Linklater and Terence Malick. Like those two auteurs, Wells has an ability to turn silence into its own special effect, one that makes you lean in further and feel as if you can smell the same musty air as the characters you’re watching on-screen.

A tale of memory and loss

The film contains one of the best performances of the year, a slow burn movie that is worth your time (and patience).

There are many moments like that in Aftersun , a film that isn’t afraid to let its characters pause, breathe, and observe the world around them. Rather than detach in these brief minutes of respite, don’t be surprised if you feel yourself sinking further into the film’s meditative mood.

3 Netflix movies like Talk to Me you should watch right now
Rosaline review: Kaitlyn Dever lifts up Hulu’s Romeo and Juliet rom-com riff
Amsterdam review: An exhausting, overlong conspiracy thriller

But there’s something else lurking beneath the surface of Aftersun . Underneath the film’s moments of joy, sadness, and togetherness, there is a yearning. It’s present in Aftersun ’s opening scene, which introduces a young father, Calum (Paul Mescal), as he dances around a hotel room and avoids answering the personal questions his daughter, Sophie (Frankie Corio), is asking him from behind her video camera. We watch Calum through the lens of Sophie’s digital camcorder, but it’s only when the recording comes to an end that we realize we’re not the only ones doing so.

As the recording freezes on Calum’s blurred face, a reflection suddenly forms over the entire image. In quick succession, we realize not only that the recording itself has been playing on a TV the whole time, but that it was this previously unseen figure who turned it on in the first place. In terms of visual tricks, this opening moment in Aftersun is one of the best of the year, and it establishes Wells’ ability to imbue even the most minute of details with stunning levels of emotional significance. It is, in other words, the perfect opening note for Aftersun , a film that creates massive ripples of emotion out of the smallest pebbles.

Over the course of Aftersun ’s 101-minute runtime, the details of its story gradually become clear. Slowly, we realize that the reflection in the film’s opening scene belongs to an older version of Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall), who has taken it upon herself to revisit some of the digital recordings she has from a trip she took to Turkey when she was 11 with her dad, Calum. Aftersun is, therefore, essentially one long trip down memory lane. The few present-day detours it takes on the way toward its heart-stopping conclusion only further imbue Sophie and Calum’s trip with an even greater sense of heartbreak and loss.

Sophie has, it turns out, begun excavating her memories in the hopes that she might finally be able to understand her father, who died shortly after his and his daughter’s fateful trip together. We’re never told how Calum died, and Wells never wastes any time exploring the 20 years that have passed since Sophie’s final vacation with him. In fact, Wells’ script for Aftersun never verbally communicates any of this information. The film, instead, establishes its “plot” through images and details that become impossible to forget. A handful of sequences in which Rowlson-Hall’s adult Sophie calls out to Mescal’s Calum in a dark, strobe-lit nightclub, for instance, make her character’s desire to reconnect with her father even after his death startlingly, heart-wrenchingly clear.

Wells brings the same level of restraint to her depiction of Calum, a mysterious figure whose internal pain is only made apparent by the knowledge of what ultimately happens to him. Mescal, for his part, turns in one of the year’s more well-calibrated, lived-in performances. He, in collaboration with Wells, builds a complete character out of nothing more than a series of short emotional breaks and long, contemplative silences. It’s a testament to the line Aftersun ultimately rides that we’re able to simultaneously understand why Corio’s younger Sophie was so mystified by her father and also discern with devastating clarity the same pain within him that Rowlson-Hall’s older Sophie can’t unsee.

Wells’ script never makes the mistake of spelling out Calum’s issues too clearly. Aside from one small scene in which Calum tells his curious daughter about a disappointing birthday from his childhood, we’re never truly allowed into his mind or given much insight into his past. Instead, Calum’s demons arise in small, all-too-relatable moments, like when his frustration over repeatedly trying and failing to put on a scuba suit briefly gets the better of him, the strain and embarrassment of it all turning his face red and ruining his mood.

Later, when Sophie talks about how she sometimes feels so tired that she becomes convinced her bones don’t work anymore, Wells’ camera briefly drifts over to Mescal’s Calum. Standing in front of a hotel room sink, Calum listens to his daughter speak and we watch, helplessly, as the fear that he’s passed his own problems onto Sophie overwhelms him. When he subsequently spits at his own reflection, it’s both a shocking moment of physical aggression and the only logical response for Calum, a man who frequently struggles to hide his own self-loathing from his daughter.

Aftersun doesn’t hurry to get to its biggest moments of emotional revelation or catharsis. The film takes its time in every sense of the phrase, which leads to its second act feeling occasionally listless and meandering. For some viewers, the film’s deliberately languid pace may even distract from the poignancy of its story and, especially, its perfectly-executed final five minutes. Those who are able to get on Aftersun ’s wavelength and give it the patience that it requires will, however, likely find themselves growing increasingly attached to its world and characters.

That’s because it’s ultimately irrelevant whether one identifies with Calum and Sophie’s relationship or not. It’s Aftersun ’s desperate desire to find answers in Sophie’s memories that makes it so emotionally effective and compelling. Wells understands, better than most it seems, that memories are puzzle pieces that change over time. In Aftersun , Sophie’s memories don’t so much lose their shape as they do their size. Put together, they form a picture that would be complete were it not for the ever-widening spaces that run throughout it. The power of Aftersun doesn’t just come from how it explores the spaces that separate its memories from reality, but in how it attempts, perhaps fruitlessly, to close them.

Aftersun is playing in select theaters now.

Editors' Recommendations

Civil War might be the most important movie of 2024. Here’s why you need to see it
Slash/Back review: The kids are all right (especially when fighting aliens)
Decision to Leave review: An achingly romantic noir thriller
Tár review: Cate Blanchett soars in Todd Field’s ambitious new drama
Vesper review: an imaginative sci-fi adventure
Product Reviews

The alarm has been tripped. The backdoor is wide open. And who or whatever’s impersonating the security-system operator on the other end of the phone line has just croaked three words that no horror movie character would ever want to hear: “Look behind you.” The command puts Rose (Sosie Bacon), the increasingly petrified heroine of Smile, between a rock and a hard place. She has to look, even if every fiber of her being would rather not. And so does the audience. We’re locked into her campfire crucible, forced to follow the hesitant backward tilt of her gaze, and the anticipatory creep of a camera that’s slow to reveal what that disembodied voice has invited her (and us) to discover.

Smile is full of moments like this. It’s a nasty, diabolically calibrated multiplex scream machine — the kind of movie that sends ripples of nervous laughter through packed theaters, the kind that marionettes the whole crowd into a synchronized dance routine of frazzled nerves and spilled popcorn. Turn up your nose, if you must, at the lowly cheap sting of a jump scare. Smile gives that maligned device a workout for the ages. It rattles with aplomb.

Entergalactic isn’t like most other animated movies that you’ll see this year — or any year, for that matter. The film, which was created by Scott Mescudi a.k.a. Kid Cudi and executive producer Kenya Barris, was originally intended to be a TV series. Now, it’s set to serve as a 92-minute companion to Cudi’s new album of the same name. That means Entergalactic not only attempts to tell its own story, one that could have easily passed as the plot of a Netflix original rom-com, but it does so while also featuring several sequences that are set to specific Cudi tracks.

Beyond the film’s musical elements, Entergalactic is also far more adult than viewers might expect it to be. The film features several explicit sex scenes and is as preoccupied with the sexual politics of modern-day relationships as it is in, say, street art or hip-hop. While Entergalactic doesn’t totally succeed in blending all of its disparate elements together, the film’s vibrantly colorful aesthetic and infectiously romantic mood make it a surprisingly sweet, imaginative tour through a fairytale version of New York City.

From its chaotic, underwater first frame all way to its liberating, sun-soaked final shot, God’s Creatures is full of carefully composed images. There’s never a moment across the film’s modest 94-minute runtime in which it feels like co-directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer aren’t in full control of what’s happening on-screen. Throughout much of God’s Creatures’ quietly stomach-churning second act, that sense of directorial control just further heightens the tension that lurks beneath the surface of the film’s story.

In God's Creatures' third act, however, Holmer and Davis’ steady grip becomes a stranglehold, one that threatens to choke all the drama and suspense out of the story they’re attempting to tell. Moments that should come across as either powerful punches to the gut or overwhelming instances of emotional relief are so underplayed that they are robbed of much of their weight. God's Creatures, therefore, ultimately becomes an interesting case study on artistic restraint, and, specifically, how too calculated a style can, if executed incorrectly, leave a film feeling unsuitably cold.

Aftersun Ending Explained: Exploring The Meaning And What Happened To Calum

This one hurts.

I first saw Aftersun in October 2022 at the Chicago International Film Festival. It’s a movie that has left me haunted ever since. The film quietly devastates you. The ending doesn’t have to shout to speak volumes about the fate of the characters and the crippling weight of memories, loss, and mental health issues .

This is one of the most profound films of 2022; you can’t help but feel something as you watch it. The Aftersun ending leaves you with one final somber image, so let’s discuss it.

Warning: Aftersun spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

How Does Aftersun End?

It’s the final night of Sophie (Frankie Corio) and Calum’s ( Paul Mescal ) Turkey vacation. They celebrate with some ice cream and some dancing to “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie (it’s one of the best movie dance scenes of 2022).

This scene is juxtaposed with images of adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) seeing her dad dancing at a rave. She screams for him but he doesn’t hear her. Then she holds him as the film flashes between child Sophie dancing and holding her father close and adult Sophie holding him so he cannot leave.

However, he eventually escapes and falls away from adult Sophie before she turns into a child.

We then see Calum recording her as she boards a plane back to Edinburgh to be with her mother and return to her life. The film then freezes on her as a child waving goodbye to her father. Adult Sophie has paused the video on her home videos from that vacation.

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

The final scene is of Calum stopping the recording and walking away.

What Happened To Calum?

When I originally saw Aftersun in October, I was convinced that the film clearly reveals that Calum died after the vacation. Rewatching the film, it became apparent that my memory of the ending has become slightly distorted. You can just feel the weight of his absence so much that it seems like the movie makes a big declaration about his fate.

Aftersun tells you everything you need to know without stating it. It shows far more than it tells.

It’s not bluntly stated, but heavily implied that he commits suicide not too long after that trip. It’s clear that this is the last time Sophie sees her father and that’s one reason why she’s recalling these memories.

There is a chance that Calum doesn’t commit suicide, but his life still ends in a heartbreaking manner.

He could have died due to some of his self-destructive behavior, or his mental health issues could have gotten so bad that he disappeared, never to be seen again. His fate isn’t confirmed, but this is a film about grief and loss, at least one aspect of it. So whatever has happened to Calum, the loving father from the vacation is gone forever.

Calum is never diagnosed in Aftersun but he shows many signs of someone suffering from a form of depression. He tries to hide it from Sophie, but in moments of solitude, you see the pain, self-loathing, fear, and despair that surrounds him. It’s one of the most thoughtful movies about depression.

One of the most gut-punching moments is when Calum casually mentions that he doesn’t think he’ll make it to 40 and is surprised he made it to 30.

There are so many little moments like these, where Calum mentions something that shows he has been suffering from mental health issues for a while, probably since adolescence. Aftersun builds its tension by allowing the audience to slowly see more and more of Calum’s pain, until we watch him break down crying.

Because much of the tone is upbeat, it isn’t the saddest movie ever but it doesn’t shy away from making its audience feel melancholy when it all ends.

At the end , the final shot further confirms his fate. Calum walks away, not going back into the real world, but into Sophie’s memories. You see the strobe lights coming from behind the door, and this seems to imply that this becomes Sophie’s final active memory of her father.

The Fear Of Aging In Aftersun

We see Calum and Sophie going through opposite reactions in their journey of aging. Sophie wants to grow up. Like many kids, she sees being an adult as a much more exciting possibility than childhood.

Calum fears growing old. We can assume this is a natural fear for many 30-somethings. However, he seems even more haunted by it than many his age, because his life doesn’t seem to be going as he wants. He has money issues, has not particularly found his career, and seems to be haunted by regrets and bad memories.

The fear of aging seems entangled with his depression and anxiety about his life. In some moments, it even seems like Calum would love to switch places with Sophie and have the ability to do it all over again, so he'd have more time to get it right.

We only see glimpses of adult Sophie, but she seems to be a similar age as Calum in the past. She’s also a new parent. So, she may be dealing with similar questions: Is this the life I wanted at this age? Am I the person my child needs me to be right now?

Growing older seems to be a major starting point for the trip (a sort-of birthday celebration for Sophie and Calum), and aging may be why adult Sophie starts her journey of remembering her father.

She celebrates a birthday, and from the opening scenes, we know that Sophie and Calum have birthdays close to each other. Therefore, her aging could also make her think even more about her father, because his birthday is also coming up.

Aging is sometimes a privilege and a curse. For Calum, it’s something he will never get to look forward to or dread again, because he’s now forever frozen in his early 30s.

The Unreliable Nature Of Memory

Aftersun is very much a movie about memory. In an interview with Brief Take , director and writer Charlotte Wells states that the overall arc of the movie is adult Sophie looking back and reflecting on this trip and her father. At the very beginning, the recording freezes and you can see a reflection of adult Sophie watching these home videos.

We then, at the end, see her fully watching them. Many of the scenes with adult Sophie show her in a rave-type situation watching her father dance. This seems, in my opinion, to act as a way to show the fading nature of Sophie’s memory of her father.

The strobe lights make it hard to completely see and watch him. He comes in fragments. He’s also moving along a sea of others, almost lost and fading from her. Metaphorically, this could be his declining mental health and also her inability to hold on to memories as she ages and they become less vibrant.

In a Deadline interview, Wells stated that she hopes viewers take away the idea that the loss doesn't diminish the love between these characters. Calum may be gone, but it’s clear that he fought his inner battles to try to be a good father for Sophie. His love for her says a lot more about him than his death.

In a Letterboxd interview, Paul Mescal had this to say about what he hopes people take from Aftersun:

They’ll probably feel a great sadness. But I’d also like them to come away knowing that memory is a very powerful thing, and it’s warm.

This offers an interesting perspective on this film. If you view it from this lens, the film still remains painfully sad but it gives power to memories. Memories help keep people alive in spirit. They also make feelings such as love, joy, and even loss stronger and more real.

Aftersun is a movie that may not have initially been at the top of my upcoming movies watch list, but I am so glad I saw it. It offers a thought-provoking look at mental health, parenting, aging, and memories. It’s one of the new streaming movies that everyone needs at the top of their list.

Rent/buy Aftersun on Amazon.

Spent most of my life in various parts of Illinois, including attending college in Evanston. I have been a life long lover of pop culture, especially television, turned that passion into writing about all things entertainment related. When I'm not writing about pop culture, I can be found channeling Gordon Ramsay by kicking people out the kitchen.

How Does Aaron Taylor-Johnson's 28 Years Later Casting Play Into Those James Bond Rumors?

Glen Powell Finally Admitted He And Sydney Sweeney Leaned Into Those Affair Rumors

After New Details About Game Of Thrones’ Scrapped 10,000 Ships Spinoff, Here’s How Faithful It Would Have Been To George R.R. Martin’s Source Material

Aftersun Review

18 Nov 2022

Rare and special is a film capable of summoning this much poignancy: a feeling which lingers well beyond the film’s final, achingly moving moments on screen. That Aftersun is the debut from British filmmaker Charlotte Wells only adds to its accomplishment.

For the most part, this two-hander of a drama moves along a languorous linear timeline: Calum (Paul Mescal) is on the brink of his 31st birthday, and committed to giving his daughter Sophie (Frankie Corio) the best experience he can with the little money he has.

Their days are filled with idle pastimes and familiar rituals, like the careful application of after-sun cream to each other’s faces at the end of a long and somehow exhausting day. Wells masterfully creates a transfixing rhythm via running motifs — hang-gliders drifting across the sky, bare British limbs knocking together by the pool — to further pull you into their world, one of tinny ’90s chart music and luminous fizzy drinks. Eleven-year-old Sophie is starting to notice the hormones in the air, and the way the older kids touch. Other than his palpable love for his daughter, Calum keeps his feelings caged. Instead, a series of small sentiments slowly build up the profile of a young man who has lost his sense of self-worth, at a time when dialogue around mental health was less robust.

Frankie Corio is a revelation, imbuing Sophie with scrappiness and affection that never feels forced.

Mescal played his first lead role in Normal People only two years before Aftersun but is already proving to be a unique and complex screen presence, with crooked charisma and a talent for playing characters who aren’t all that they appear to be. As Calum, he delivers a soulful performance that unfurls gradually, heartbreakingly, over the holiday. Corio, meanwhile, is a revelation, imbuing Sophie with scrappiness and affection that never feels forced. Together, the pair conjure a tenderness that is, at times, breathtaking; in one scene, Mescal traces Corio’s eyebrow with his finger until Sophie falls into an easy sleep.

Their story exists in the form of adult Sophie’s (Celia Rowlson-Hall) memories, who, on her own 30th birthday, has that holiday heavily on her mind. Rather than a conventional flashback device, Wells puts Calum and older Sophie together under the flashing lights of a crowded, kinetic dancefloor, moving to the music in a way that feels far more powerful than words could achieve. The final act doesn’t pack a big gut-punch moment, but evokes all the emotional weight of one. The end of Calum and Sophie’s holiday is inevitable, though not before a joyful, precious few final moments together.

Aftersun plays out as a deftly orchestrated, empathetic and honest character study. It is beautifully performed, and captured with heart and ingenuity by Wells, who isn’t afraid to play with framing and style (the holiday is filmed in part on a shaky MiniDV camera) to compliment her story. Breakout filmmaking simply doesn’t come more exciting than this.

Movies | 19 02 2023

Movies | 02 12 2022

Aftersun (II) (2022)

User Reviews

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

User Ratings
External Reviews
Metacritic Reviews
Full Cast and Crew
Release Dates
Official Sites
Company Credits
Filming & Production
Technical Specs
Plot Summary
Plot Keywords
Parents Guide

Did You Know?

Crazy Credits
Alternate Versions
Connections
Soundtracks

Photo & Video

Photo Gallery
Trailers and Videos

Parents are sobbing over 'Bluey' episode 'The Sign.' Is the show ending? What we know

Here's what to know about that poignant Season 3 finale, and what may be ahead for "Bluey."

Spoiler alert: This article contains details about “The Sign” episode of “Bluey.”

Parents who watch the popular Disney+ series "Bluey" with their little ones had some big emotions when the latest super-sized episode hit the streaming service Sunday.

"The Sign," which at 28 minutes was about the length of four regular "Bluey" episodes, also had fans worried that the Heeler family's possible move to a new house could have signaled the end of the beloved series after three seasons.

However, the final scene of "The Sign" makes it appear that the Heeler family is staying put – and producers have indicated to multiple news outlets that the adventures of Bluey and her family are far from concluded.

'Bluey:' What to know about extended episode 'The Sign'

What happened in 'The Sign?'

On the surface, "Bluey" purports to be a children's show about a cartoon family of dogs living in Australia.

And it is that, with it's endless quirky hijinks delighting youngsters of all early ages. But the series produced in Brisbane, Australia, by Ludo Studio has also struck a nerve with parents who find themselves moved – often to tears – by the relatable situations and familial themes that arise in the series.

"The Sign," which premiered Sunday, is certainly no exception.

The episode title refers to the “For Sale” sign in front of the Heeler home that caused many adult fans to fear that the family was on the cusp of a significant move for patriarch Bandit's new job. Bluey is not happy about the impending move, and neither is her mother, Chilli, despite her efforts to be supportive.

The impending move looms in the background for much of an episode that is otherwise framed around a wedding celebration of Bandit's brother Radley to Frisky.

By now, those who have watched the episode know that the Heelers don't appear to be on the move after all after Bandit – realizing that his family's best life took place at that house – rips the sign from the yard before the credits roll.

How fans reacted to that emotional episode

Needless to say, some parents were in their feelings after such a heart-stirring finale.

"Now, that’s what we call a stellar season finale. Also, how dare this show for pre-schoolers make adults get all emotional," Jazz Tangcay, an editor at Variety, posted on social media site X.

Pro wrestler and father Johnny Gargano posted on X that the new episode is straight-up Avengers: End Game level for all of us (fans.)"

"What a fantastic emotional rollercoaster!" Gargano added .

"It’s like watching SpongeBob as an adult except it rips your heart out," fan Jack Caporuscio wrote on X .

"My therapist isn’t gonna know what hit her. Sensational television," fan Sam Gavin wrote on X . "No I’m not joking. Bandit & Chilli are parenting goals. I love these characters so much."

Fan Brittany Bailey wrote on X that her husband woke her family up to watch the episode, and then "cried his eyes out."

"The last time he cried was at the birth of our baby," Bailey wrote. "Bluey is so much more than a kids cartoon."

On Instagram, influencer Bethany Krat joked that "'Oppenheimer' was cool and everything, but did you see the 'Bluey' episode 'The Sign?'"

"You can’t tell me these Bluey episodes aren’t cinematic masterpieces," Krat wrote, adding that her family dog is named after the character Bandit. "They generate more feelings and emotions than any movie ever has, and I feel like I need to give my therapist a call to unpack things after each one."

Is 'Bluey' ending after 'The Sign' episode?

Fortunately, this doesn't appear to be the end of the Heeler family's adventures.

In fact, it may signal a momentous change in direction or scope for a show that has so far been defined by quick 7-minute episodes.

While Disney+ declined to comment when reached Monday by USA TODAY, "Bluey" producer Sam Moore told BBC that "we have more in store and we are thinking what would be next."

"No it is not the end for 'Bluey,'" Moore said. "I'm sure we have many more surprises in store for you."

‘Bluey' executive producer Daley Pearson told the Los Angeles Times that the episode is something of a test to see how an audience responds to a longer format of the show, which debuted in 2019. He even hinted that a feature film could be on the horizon.

“It’s an episode about these very important things that these characters are going through,” Pearson told the LA Times. “It’s probably the biggest possible changes these characters have ever gone through. There’s a bit of experimental feel to it. Will it work? Will the audience stick with it? And I think it’s one of the most beautiful episodes we’ve made.”

How to watch 'Bluey'

Three seasons of the show are available to stream on Disney+ . Monthly subscription rates start at $9.99.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

IMAGES

Aftersun movie review & film summary (2022)
Aftersun
Aftersun (2022)
Aftersun Full Movie || Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall
‘Aftersun’ Movie Review: Charlotte Wells’ Feature Debut Is a Deep
Aftersun (2022)

VIDEO

Aftersun
Why Aftersun is The Best Film of 2022 (Video Essay)
aftersun (2022) review
ALL OF US STRANGERS ist ein bezauberndes (Gefühls-)Chaos! (Review)
Aftersun 2022
Spiegeltje, spiegeltje: filmjaar 2023

COMMENTS

Aftersun movie review & film summary (2022)
In a way, "Aftersun" is an act of imaginative empathy. Sophie can now look at the things that child Sophie could not see. This once-removed point of view, this slightly distanced stance, gives the film its melancholy melody of an almost elegiac sweetness. In the present moment, all is sunshine and laughter, Calum and Sophie having ice cream ...
Aftersun review
Aftersun review - luminous father-daughter drama starring Paul Mescal . This article is more than 1 year old. Charlotte Wells's debut feature is a stylistically daring, emotionally piercing ...
'Aftersun' Review: A Father and Time
Or rather, a piece of the story she and her father wrote together, which she has lived to tell. Aftersun. Rated R. Some bad words and tough situations, but nothing a sensitive adolescent couldn ...
Aftersun
Feb 13, 2024. Dec 29, 2023. Nov 2, 2023. At a fading vacation resort, 11-year-old Sophie treasures rare time together with her loving and idealistic father, Calum (Paul Mescal). As a world of ...
'Aftersun' review: Charlotte Wells' piercing debut film
Review: 'Aftersun,' one of the year's great debut films, is a piercing father-daughter story. Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in the movie "Aftersun.". Something odd happened to me during ...
Aftersun film review: An astounding first feature that captures Paul
Aftersun review: An astounding first feature that captures Paul Mescal at his most heart-wrenching Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells has made a movie that feels as if it's teetering on the edge ...
'Aftersun' review: This is the best film of the year by a first time
For Wells, the territory of the human heart is all she needs to keep us smiling, nodding in recognition and then fighting back tears. "Aftersun" is a father-daughter story, based on Wells' life as ...
Aftersun review
Aftersun review - beach holiday with Paul Mescal and daughter is a sunny delight. ... Wells's movie ripples and shimmers like a swimming pool of mystery; the way Wells captures mood and moment ...
Review
October 26, 2022 at 9:21 a.m. EDT. Frankie Corio, left, and Paul Mescal in "Aftersun." (A24) 3 min. ( 3 stars) The fragile fabric of memory, rendered in both mist and digital media, is the ...
Paul Mescal in 'Aftersun' Cannes Review
The Bottom Line A memory piece with a powerful afterglow. Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Critics' Week) Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall. Director-screenwriter: Charlotte Wells ...
'Aftersun' Review: Paul Mescal Is a Movie Dad for the Ages in Charlotte
A24 releases the film in theaters on Friday, October 21. A stunning debut that develops with the gradual poignancy of a Polaroid, Charlotte Wells ' " Aftersun " isn't just an honest movie ...
'Aftersun' Review: A Father, a Daughter, and Things Left Unsaid
Movie Review 'Aftersun' Review: A Father, a Daughter, and Things Left Unsaid Writer-director Charlotte Wells' elegiac debut feature tells a simple but deceptively devastating tale of a family ...
'Aftersun' review: the best British movie this year
'Aftersun' review: Paul Mescal hits new heights in the best British movie this year. His latest is a moody, melancholic rumination on parenthood and the passage of time. 4. By James Mottram.
'Aftersun' Movie Review: A Work of Gorgeous Melancholy
Throughout Aftersun, Mescal is a marvel of boyish fun masking a deep streak of self-loathing he tries mightily to hide from his daughter, but in that sequence, as Sophie stands there discovering ...
Aftersun Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 2 ): Kids say ( 4 ): This profoundly emotional drama is one of the most assured, confident debut productions from a first-time filmmaker you're likely to see. From Aftersun 's very opening frame, Charlotte Wells knows exactly the story she is telling, and has complete power over the narrative.
'Aftersun' is a masterpiece of memory
Aftersun is one of the greatest depictions of depression and grief captured on film as it meditates on childhood, parenthood, and memory. Beautifully wrought with cinematography and score that play like a memory on loop. As the movie comes to its stunningly satisfying and emotional conclusion—perhaps one of the greatest final moments of a ...
Charlotte Wells on Aftersun, The Guardian's best film of the year: 'The
Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal in Aftersun. Photograph: Sarah Makharine. The film is certainly open, and I have seen people bring many different kinds of experiences to it, but that was certainly ...
'Aftersun' Review
Aftersun, the stunning debut feature from writer-director Charlotte Wells, is one such work. While clearly reflective about the past and the way we recall it as we move into the future, there is ...
Aftersun review: a tender, heart-wrenching memory piece
An unforgettable final 5 minutes. Cons. An overly languid pace. A meandering second act. Charlotte Wells' directorial debut, Aftersun, is an open-hearted, tender piece of filmmaking. It crackles ...
Aftersun Ending Explained: Exploring The Meaning And What Happened To
Aftersun is a movie that may not have initially been at the top of my upcoming movies watch list, but I am so glad I saw it. It offers a thought-provoking look at mental health, parenting, aging ...
Aftersun
Aftersun is a 2022 coming-of-age drama film written and directed by Charlotte Wells in her feature directorial debut.Starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall, the film follows an 11-year-old Scottish girl on holiday with her father at a Turkish resort on the eve of his 31st birthday.. Aftersun had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2022, where Wells was ...
Aftersun
Aftersun Review. In the late 1990s, 30-year-old single father Calum (Mescal) takes his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (Corio) to a Turkish holiday resort for a rare trip together. Years later, an ...
Aftersun (2022)
Aftersun is a film that I wasn't sure I understood when the credits started rolling. Then, as I sat and thought about everything I had seen, I came to believe more and more that it's kind of genius. What the movie lacks in overt substantive plot it more than makes up for in authenticity and subtle placement of character-building images and ...
Aftersun : r/movies
The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. ... I wasn't in the right mindset to watch Aftersun so I didn't get a lot of the subtle hints of what's going on and I only ...
Horror Movie The Watchers Changes Its Release Date (Again)
The Watchers is the feature directorial debut of M. Night Shyamalan's daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan. Back in February, it was announced that the movie had changed its release date from June 7th ...
Is 'Bluey' over after emotional 'The Sign' episode? What we know
Parents who watch the popular Disney+ series "Bluey" with their little ones had some big emotions to "The Sign," which premiered Sunday at 28 minutes.

Movie Reviews

Sheila O'Malley

Now playing

Dusk for a Hitman

LaRoy, Texas

Matt Zoller Seitz

Stress Positions

Food, Inc. 2

Late Night with the Devil

Aftersun (2022)

Cinematographer

Latest blog posts

The Movies That Underwent Major Changes After Their Festival Premiere

Netflix's Dead Boy Detectives Is A Spinoff Stuck In Limbo

Preview of Tributes at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

Pioneering Actor-Producer Terry Carter Dies

‘Aftersun’ Review: A Father and Time

Explore More in TV and Movies

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Email not verified

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

Movies / TV

Where to Watch

What to Know

Audience Reviews

More Like This

Review: ‘Aftersun,’ one of the year’s great debut films, is a piercing father-daughter story

More to Read

Review: In ‘Shayda,’ a woman’s escape sheds light on her abuser — and a patriarchal culture

Review: In Turkey’s ‘About Dry Grasses,’ a master manipulator barely understands his own heart

In ‘Four Daughters,’ a shattered Tunisian family braves obstacles in the eye of the camera

More From the Los Angeles Times

This is what Billie Eilish talks about when she’s not promoting ‘Barbie, Barbie, Barbie’

Review: Generic from its title onward, ‘Boy Kills World’ does little to differentiate its gore

‘Rebel’ redacted: Rebel Wilson’s book chapter on Sacha Baron Cohen struck from some copies

Review: In ‘Unsung Hero,’ a family’s musical success story comes to life via the clan itself

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

UK Edition Change

Thank you for registering

Aftersun review: An astounding first feature that captures Paul Mescal at his most heart-wrenching

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey

Join our commenting forum

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

'Aftersun' review: This is the best film of the year by a first time writer-director

MORE: Review: 'Anatomy of a Scandal' features exhilirating performances

MORE: Review: 'The Woman King is indelible and truly inspiring

‘Aftersun’: A father-daughter bond, seen through a haze of memory

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

site categories

Sheri Linden

Related Stories

Full credits

THR Newsletters

More from The Hollywood Reporter

‘Aftersun’ Review: Paul Mescal Is a Movie Dad for the Ages in Charlotte Wells’ Staggeringly Beautiful Debut

Most Popular

‘Aftersun’ Review: A Father, a Daughter, and Things Left Unsaid

K. Austin Collins

Harvey Weinstein Survivors Saddened by Overturned NY Conviction: ‘Disappointing for All of Us’

'Hollywood Con Queen': See First Trailer for Docuseries About Scam That Shocked the Film Industry

Sacha Baron Cohen Passages Redacted From Rebel Wilson's Memoir in U.K.

Most Popular

Verify it's you

‘Aftersun’ review: Paul Mescal hits new heights in the best British movie this year

More Stories:

The Gorgeous Melancholy of Aftersun

More Movie Reviews

Most Viewed Stories

Editor’s Picks

Most Popular

Sign In To Continue Reading

Or browse by category:

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

Common Sense Selections for Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun