After the sun (now on Netflix) was one of the biggest critical hits of 2022. Praise for Scottish writer-director Charlotte Wells’ debut feature began at Cannes, where leading arthouse distributor A24 picked it up for distribution in North America; garnered further acclaim on the festival circuit before landing on the National Board of Review and Sight & Sound’s best-of-the-year lists. It stars newcomers Frankie Corio and Paul Mescal, from the BBC series. Normal people and the extraordinary 2021 The lost daughter – like daughter and father on a sunny seaside holiday in Turkey, framed as a melancholic memory that silently sinks into your bones.
AFTER THE SUN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: Shaky camcorder footage: Sophie (Corio) films her father, Calum (Mescal). There are two days left until I turn 31. “When you were 11, what did you think you’d be doing now?” he asks, jokingly. She actually never responds. The footage was filmed 20 years ago, when she was 11, and they went on holiday to a resort in Turkey. They arrive at the hotel and discover that her room only has one bed, when she booked for two. Would it be a big problem if father and daughter slept in the same double bed? Probably not, but he sleeps on a cot. Or maybe he’s not sleeping very well: the clock on the nightstand reads 3:08 am. It is now 3:09.
It’s a relaxing trip, spending time languidly in restaurants and by the pool. Sophie plays a motorcycle video game and chats with a boy her age. They do some snorkeling, take a bus ride to scenic spots, play pool, watch the resort staff perform the Macarena; Calum refuses to do karaoke with Sophie, while she refuses to dance with him at the dance club. They visit a Turkish rug dealer and Calum tells Sophie how each piece tells a story. She asks for the price of a rug, but she is expensive; she will return later, without Sophie, to buy it.
As the quiet, introspective narrative unfolds, we piece together the dynamic between these two. Calum and Sophie’s mother are not together; They clearly had Sophie when they were relatively young. She doesn’t have much money and she seems to have professional difficulties. At only 11 years old, Sophie doesn’t seem to understand very well why he seems to be so emotionally unavailable. Sometimes he does tai chi and she rolls her eyes at his “slow-motion ninja moves.” For her birthday, Sophie encourages a bus full of tourists to sing to him, and he doesn’t seem happy or even embarrassed. He just looks sad. White.
What movies will it remind you of?: After the sun offers the understated artistry of a Kelly Reichardt film – watch old joy either First cow – with the strongest, least affected child actor performance since Brooklynn Prince in The Florida project.
Performance worth seeing: Even when playing a character who records herself with a camcorder, Forio displays a remarkable ability to simply exist, naturally and comfortably, in front of a camera.
Memorable dialogue: Sophie, to her father: “I think it’s nice that we share the same sky.”
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: Pay close attention and you will figure it out. After the sun is adult Sophie’s melancholic (deeply melancholic) memory of her time with her father. This is a film made complete by her unspoken inferences; To see it is to marinate in the silences that fill the space between the few dialogues. The nature of Sophie and Calum’s relationship is deliberately vague, and we’re left to wonder: they don’t see each other often, do they? She probably lives with her mother most of the time. Her personal situation, psychological or not, is probably too unstable to meet the demands of an 11-year-old girl who, like all children her age, is discovering her independence despite still being totally dependent on the adults in her life. , that awkward stage of development illustrated by her desire to put on sunscreen, despite her inability to adequately reach her own shoulder blades. Then Calum rubs her lotion on him.
And so the film urges us to read many of its seemingly mundane little moments like this one. Sometimes the relative silence is broken by a terse observation (maybe the sky, big and vast and blue, is the only thing that really connects Sophie and Calum) or a few desperate gasps. Wells occasionally appears and returns to a surreal dance club sequence where Calum has seemingly lost himself in the movement and music, and Sophie struggles to reach him; It’s the classic nightmare where you’re searching for something that’s out of reach, or you’re trying to dial the phone but you keep dialing the wrong numbers.
There’s the anger and frustration of loss that runs beneath the tender but curious scenes of Sophie and Calum playing in the pool or eating quietly. Adult Sophie remembers her father and the mystery of his deep melancholy with the perspective of someone who has become an adult and probably understands her father better now, in his absence, than she did as a child (not that she was at all). ). capable, yes). There’s a scene where Sophie and Calum are having dinner when a man takes their photo and the Polaroid slowly fades to a blur. That was her father; This is the memory of her.
Our call: After the sun is the work of an artist capable of evoking abundant emotions through innovative narrative means. TRANSMIT IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.