‘Aftersun’: Telling a Story in Details
Aftersun is an incredible piece of film that simply asks you to pay attention so it can break your heart.
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If you’re a writer, or know a writer, or recently sat next to a writer for a few minutes on, say, a public bus, you’ve no doubt heard the phrase “show don’t tell.1” This is a classic piece of writing advice that underlines the fact that sometimes the weakest way to tell your reader something is to, well, tell them. Instead, you should show them, demonstrate what’s happening. It’s more active, has more impact, and is a lot more interesting than a lengthy description2.
Sometimes telling is a better option—writing is exhaustingly rule-free, once you dig into it—but it’s generally good advice. And when it’s executed well it can become a sublime way to tell a story. This is the approach that Aftersun takes. The film, starring Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall, was written and directed by Charlotte Wells. Autobiographical to what seems like a large but unknowable degree, it’s the story of a father named Calum (Mescal) and his daughter Sophie (Corio)’s 1990s-era trip to a run-down Turkish resort3. Interspersed with those sequences are scenes from the present day, where a grown up Sophie watches videotapes from the trip, and scenes in a strange, ominous rave where we see Calum and grown-up Sophie in strobe light flashes.
The plot is pretty thin and straightforward, from one angle. Calum is divorced from Sophie’s mother. The two seem to enjoy each other’s company, do various vacation things4, have a fight, make up, and then Calum drops Sophie at the airport to go home. That’s kind of it; other things happen, but there are no major events, no big tragedies, no huge moments. Instead, there are a lot of details that we are shown but never told about, and it’s glorious.
This is Our Last Dance
As you watch Aftersun it slowly dawns on you that you’re watching a very, very sad movie. Calum initially seems like a cheerful, goofy kind of dad type. He’s just turning 31, so he was about 20 years old when he had Sophie, and he dotes on her. For her part, Sophie is a good-natured kid, cheerful and uncomplaining, and clearly happy to spend some time with her dad5. For a while it looks like a father and daughter kind of vibing on each other despite a divorce and everything that presumably goes with it.
The details, though, start to pile up. A fellow guest assumes Calum is Sophie’s brother, and this clearly puts him on his back foot. Calum expresses some financial concerns, hesitating to spend money and worrying over a lost and pricey pair of scuba goggles, hinting at a man worrying over finances. He has a small library of self-help books, he practices Tai-Chi poorly. He smokes cigarettes but hides it from his daughter. He tells a diving instructor that he can’t imagine being 40. He steps in front of a bus without even flinching, barely evading a fatal accident. When his daughter describes what could be the symptoms of nascent depression, he stares at himself in the bathroom mirror and spits at his reflection6.
At the same time, Sophie bonds with some older kids of beer-drinking and shot-doing age7. Instead of luring her into bad behavior, they seem to adopt her as a mascot, and treat her kindly enough. What’s interesting about them is how they inform Calum’s character; he was probably their age, and perhaps on a holiday similar to this one, when he conceived Sophie. His past—the freedom, the fun, the lack of psychic weight—is right there in front of him. Worse, his daughter chooses to hang out with these younger versions of him8.
By the time the viewer figures out that Calum is in a lot of trouble, he has what amounts to a bit of a breakdown, collapsing, I think, under the pressure of pretending to be okay. He refuses to sing karoke with Sophie. She’s hurt, and lashes out at him. Instead of acting like a mature 31-year-old man, Calum leaves Sophie by herself at the resort. He walks off into the ocean in the darkness, and leaves his daughter locked out of their room. When she gets management to let her in, she finds her father lying naked on the bed9.
Feels Like Your Bones Don't Work
When combined with the present-day parts with a 31-year-old Sophie and the imaginary rave where she sees flashes of her father dancing but can’t seem to reach him, the implication that Calum commits suicide shortly after he dropped her off after the trip becomes almost inescapable. This is why adult Sophie imagines Calum dancing madly in a rave and struggles to connect with him—this is where he’s been for twenty years, lost to her, a mystery to her (the final shot of Aftersun is the most quietly devastating thing I’ve seen in a long time10).
But we’re not told anything. No one says “Well, when your dad killed himself ... ” There’s no obvious, explicit thing. But there are two details that I think confirms it beyond any doubt.
There’s a scene where Calum and Sophie visit a rug maker, and Calum expresses interest in a very expensive rug, but clearly struggles with the expense. Later, without Sophie, he returns and purchases it. Grown-up Sophie has the rug in her apartment in the present-day, so we can assume that Calum purchased it explicitly to give to her despite his financial problems. Then, at their final dinner at the resort, Calum is approached by a photographer about paying to have a photo taken11. He asks how much it is, and then happily pays for it. Calum, who has been sweating money since they arrived, who clearly booked them into a cut-rate resort because it was the best he could afford, quite suddenly becomes free and easy with his cash. This is pretty classic behavior for people who have made that final, terrible decision: They suddenly have no worries, because they assume there will no reckoning. At least, not in this world.
Nothing is said. Nothing is told. But it’s all there in the details. It’s beautiful storytelling, really, and, yes, I’m a little jealous.
On the other hand, I once spent a week at a cut-rate all-inclusive resort12 and it was an absolutely terrible way to spend vacation time that not even endless free whiskies could make good, so maybe that’s the point of this film. Criticism is hard, you have no idea.
NEXT WEEK: Loudermilk fails the vibe test.
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I wake up in the night screaming this phrase. Sometimes I scream NOT IN THE FACE instead, for variety. It’s a problem. I think I’m glad I don’t remember my dreams.
It also gives you a lot of wiggle room to feign brilliance behind obfuscation, and to accuse your detractors of “not getting it.” Believe me, this works.
Which still seems quite nice, which is probably a sign that I am a very low-class person with zero taste. Heck, I consider a six pack and a bag of Cheetohs all I need for a rockin’ staycation, so … carry on.
I did not grow up in a Vacation Family. My parents’ approach to time off was for my father to sit at home drinking beer while my mother dragged my brother and I to various day trips. This meant our ‘vacations’ were 75% sitting in a car feeling vaguely nauseous and 20% wandering around places like Crystal Caves or Wild West City. And 5% lunch at Burger King, which is what I got really excited about.
If I could go back to being 11 I might try being cheerful and easygoing, see if it works better than being sarcastic and difficult. Actually, I guess I could try doing that right now, no time travel necessary.
Fun fact: If you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror long enough, you begin to doubt your existence. Five years later, you’re in a Mexican jail wearing someone else’s pants.
I’ll never understand movie drinking. People just do shot after shot after shot. When I was young and spry I still needed, like, an hour between shots to recover. I’m a whiskey sippin’ man.
On this score, I am safe: No one would ever choose to hang out with the younger versions of me. I didn’t even want to be there.
The signs of depression can be difficult to spot. After all, that’s pretty much what I did last night, and I had a blast.
And I say that as a man who has been quietly devastated ever since the New York Mets’ 1987 season.
Also a heartbreaking detail: Calum does the classic Dad Joke of making rabbit ears behind Sophie’s head while posing for the photo. I’m not crying, you’re crying.
I’ve seen horror movies, so the whole resort vibe made me nervous.