By: Andrew Wing

Aftersun is a 2022 drama film written and directed by Charlotte Wells in her feature directorial debut. The film stars Paul Mescal (The Lost Daughter, Normal People), Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall (Vox Lux).

Set in the early 2000s, the film follows Sophie (Corio), an 11-year-old Scottish girl, as she reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday vacation she took with her father, Calum (Mescal), at a Turkish resort twenty years earlier on the eve of her 31st birthday.

Aftersun was released in the United States on October 21, 2022, by A24 and in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2022, by Mubi. Paul Mescal earned a nomination for Academy Award for Best Actor. It was also named one of the best films of 2022 by the National Board of Review and was awarded top place by Sight and Sound on its poll for the best films of the year.

THE GOOD

Ever since the Cannes International Film Festival, Aftersun has been at the very top of my watchlist. It got great reviews there, and last month I saw this being at the top of almost every critic's best films of 2022 list, including the one and only Sight and Sound list too. Well, it hit VOD last week and the other day I finally had the chance to check out the latest drama from my favorite production company A24. But did it live up to the insane amount of hype? Keep reading to find out!

It really freaking did! The film was written and directed by Charlotte Wells in her feature directorial debut, and if there’s one thing I can say to people after having watched this is to remember her name. Seriously though, Aftersun is stunning and it is just a gem of a movie. The film follows Sophie as she reflects on a holiday vacation she took with her father, Calum and we really just follow them throughout that week and witness their bond, their love, and their connection, and we also observe some of the gaps in their communication and it was just amazing to watch this story unfold. It’s funny because the movie was produced by Barry Jenkins, the man behind the Best Picture-winning film Moonlight and also If Beale Street Could Talk, and it’s crazy to say how many similarities there were between this movie and his movies. I mean this movie was so empathetic, poetic, and human, and it truly is one of the most incredible directing debuts I have ever seen. I don’t want to put too much pressure on Wells, but after this, I don’t think I am alone in saying that she has what it takes to become one of the best writer-directors working today.

As good as Wells' direction and the original screenplay was, this movie is absolutely carried by the two lead performances from Frankie Corio as Sophie and Paul Mescal as Calum. First, with Mescal, he is phenomenal in this and I’m so damn happy he got the Academy Award nomination yesterday for Best Actor. I mean he truly deserves it. He was great at carrying the unspoken and darker qualities of his character because of how he feels about being thrown into fatherhood at a young age, and I don’t know if there’s an actor right now who has a brighter future than Mescal. As for Frankie Corio, she was just amazing as this girl who is coming-of-age and asking her father a ton of questions that he is not ready to answer. It was just fascinating to see how comfortable Corio was with the DVR recorder that was being used throughout the movie, and she just felt so real and so mature in this role. More than that, she was also capable of expressing really complex emotions in a subtle way and it was just one of those child performances that will be talked about for years to come.

As for some of the other elements with Aftersun, it just doesn’t miss. The editing in the movie is super unconventional and a little abstract, but it worked so well and I would’ve loved to have seen this get a Best Editing nomination. More than that though, the movie is just so beautiful visually speaking thanks to Gregory Oke’s cinematography, and also just some of Charlotte Wells’ compositions that will just burn themselves in your mind. Oh and last but not least, I won’t spoil it, but the ending is really great.

THE BAD

As for things I will spoil though, I loved this movie! However, if you’re one of those people who doesn’t want the movie to end before you are ready for it to, this might not be for you. As I said, I loved the ending, but there will definitely be some questions that you don’t get answered, but that’s okay because I think at the end of the day you will still get the release you want and I’d be shocked if it didn’t hit you emotionally.

THE VERDICT

Aftersun is without a doubt one of the best films 2022 has to offer. It is a deeply moving, empathetic, and truly human story that is brought to life behind one of the most impressive debuts of honestly all-time from Charlotte Wells, and also some of the best performances of the year from Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio.