Contemporary British cinema seemed to be a monolith that seemed to persevere for better (a sensibility for closely-examined social backgrounds) or for worse (a notorious incapability to engage with more ambitious passions). The most recent fruit of the crop, “Aftersun”, directed by first-time filmmaker Charlotte Wells, attempts to change the parameters of this situation.

A divorced father goes on a trip to a Turkish resort with his 11-year-old daughter, who has remained in the custody of her mother: you’ve guessed it (a study of masculinity is at play), or well, not really (the bitter topic is sweetened by all sorts of “retro” effects, that aspire to reach beyond simple catchphrases, towards the realm of painful memories). Taken from the opposite sense – that of surface-level meanings –, Aftersun is an interesting intuition that has been rendered into an image: the typical languor of all-inclusive holidays, as seen through the eyes of clients for whom the act of truly feeling good (i.e., being brainwashed) or of protesting against this routine with an air of superiority (i.e., extremism) are two equally unattainable ways to save oneself.

From this particular type of slow death that is sitting in the sun on the edge of the pool, Wells extracts a cinematic matter that is paradoxical and all the more appealing. She’s served by two very good actors – Paul Mescal, a rising star who embodies a certain type of alternative to the Hollywood model: he has made a name for himself in independent films, and on top of that, he’s also Irish, and Frankie Corio – who, under the filmmaker’s direction, achieve great chemistry together. But, as we soon get to understand, things are much more complicated than that.

Here, Mescal plays the role of a man that is still young, which the film tries to keep away from predetermined labels: he’s not quite a loser – even though he plays at being a ninja, at times –, nor does he struggle with any sort of visible addiction, while his social background remains vaporous and discreet. Even moreso, he’s handsome and affectionate, and he even seems to be a good dad. On the other hand, when he congratulates his ex-wife on the phone, one gets a hint of the fact that we’re facing a man that is broken on the inside. Corio is the child – and in her role, smart and spirited, with a straightforwardness that verges on the obvious, she becomes the quicksilver of this somber and winding film.

The amusing maturity of her performance makes one even more regretful of the restrains of a mise-en-scene that is much too cerebral, which prevents the film from breathing, from being truly surprising. Everything that the film “randomly” strews in its path ends up being highly significant: the father dances on the balcony, in the loneliness of the night, hiding his inevitable drive towards repressed fantasies; the Handycam – with its cheerful, shaky footage – that is like an incarnation of pain, an emotional shortcut; even a beautiful scene of complicity, when the two have their picture taken on a Polaroid camera, lingers too much on this photograph that slowly comes to life, thus locking down the meaning of the film on the well-trodden path of “the irreversible passage of time”. 

It must be said that Aftersun is coming to Romanian screens after having enjoyed the general, almost unanimous consensus of critics. It must be then said from the very get-go that this is an overrated film. This is not to say that it’s meritless: on the contrary, from the very meager crop of 2022, it stands out as an absolutely decent offering. But it’s precisely this decency that is bothersome, because, ultimately, it represents a marketing tool. Aftersun is a film all the more refined that manifests an almost paranoid preoccupation with exhibiting a sensibility that is necessarily reasonable, bordering upon affectation.

Transiting between this warm memory of the aughts and the inner turmoil of today’s protagonist, the film makes sure that it gives spectators just the right amount of afterthoughts. Through its strategic slowness, the cautious intelligence of the parallels that it develops between past and present, and, finally, through the easily-recognizable social layer that it observes, Aftersun is careful not to be confused with a mindless blockbuster, nor with a sample of cinema that reeks of didacticism, not even with – why not? – a film of inappropriate humanity.

What Wells achieves is a work that is oft-respectable in what concerns its attention towards smaller narrative devices – see all the smoothly-closed time-jumps –, but that is as boring and as self-aware as any bourgeois art form that knows its manners. Its context is that of mental health. Besides, what seems to be the greatest fear of this film is that it might somehow end up ruffling up the feathers of its audience.

Aftersun is a film all the more refined that manifests an almost paranoid preoccupation with exhibiting a sensibility that is necessarily reasonable, bordering upon affectation.

The result is a middle-brow art that pushes the right buttons, that is preoccupied with achieving some sort of transcendence, but that seems to have been purposefully avoided by grace. (Something similar, yet even more deeply-rooted than this, is characteristic of the purely ornamental films of fellow brit Joanna Hogg.) From the position of this timid vision, the world seems to begin and end with the concept of “indie” – the banner which is flown high at Sundance, the very festival that, though assimilation, has rendered the idea of working outside of the system pointless, and which also offered a part of the framework in which Aftersun was developed. Cloaked in images recorded on film stock, this film is doubtlessly the fruit of a process of reflection. But it’s a forced reflection, one that is eager to ask for guarantees and – in contrast to its protagonist – is too reluctant to dive head-first into the water.

Aftersun will be released in Romanian cinemas on the 3rd of March. 

Victor Morozov

Film critic and journalist; writes regularly for Dilema Veche and Scena9. Doing a MA film theory programme in Paris.