Mark Kermode reviews Aftersun - Kermode and Mayo’s Take

#MarkKermode #SimonMayo #FilmReviews

Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't.

[fredfulford]

This film... I didn't realise it was emotionally effecting me until I was overwhelmed. But it's a cumulative effect of all of it, it's not manipulative. It's kind of like the tide coming in, imperceptible at first, but then it's everywhere. It's a really beautiful picture. And the performances are just sublime. Bravo.

[christofjork]

4 Years ago I went through a deep depression, when my daughter was 10 and my son was 13. I remember being on holiday in Egypt with them, trying to keep up appearances and barely holding on. This film got me good. Even though the love for my children was so immensely strong I felt like barely being able to face the next day. Fortunately I got help at the right moment. The film and the acting is so on point.

[brocoolhurst]

I got invited to a screening on Monday and I can’t tell you how hard this film hits and gets right the closeness and vast distance between you and a parent when you grow up with your parents apart. I left the cinema in tears and rang my dad and told him how much I loved him, and then I cried all the way home on the bus. It is outrageously special and I will have this film with me for the rest of my life

[chrisparkes]

I was completely unprepared for the gut punches this film lands, without ever being manipulative or melodramatic or cruel. Around the karaoke scene I covered my mouth as I was holding back the tears so hard, and from that point on I was a goner. It is so tender and so poignant. It was such a pleasure to see a film about what feels like real human beings and real life, that reflects a lived experience back to us. It also articulates the pain of men flailing under the pressures life throws at them, without trashing them or making apologies. What a film.

[EubulusKane]

An extraordinary experience. Was bored for most of it, blown away by the last twenty minutes and it wasn't until I woke up the next day and read an article written by Wells (including a picture of her father - a haunting, spitting image of Paul Mescal) that I started sobbing my eyes out.

It was like 20 years of the director's grief had been induced in me within a 24 hour period. I experienced the film as Sophie had experienced the holiday; bored at times, a bit confused, suspecting something was wrong or off, then going home a bit baffled. When I woke up the next morning, I was the 31 year old Sophie, looking back, piecing it all together, realizing what had happened, and weeping for my loss.

Near miraculous art. I write and make films, and I can't even begin to work how Charlotte Wells did it.

[guest_informant]

4:50 Sense of threat:
He goes scuba diving without a licence, cut to scene of waves, he doesn't surface, implication - he's drowned.
He walks behind the bus, there's a LOUD HORN...but he emerges the other side.
Isn't he also balancing on the balcony railings at one point.
There may be more, but these are the ones I remember.
Also, after one of these scenes the film cuts to a GAME OVER on a computer game screen.

[matayolandas]

A true masterpiece. "Under Pressure" scene and the ending are up there among the best film moments of the year, an possibly of the century so far.

[domb]

Peter Bradshaw was splendidly eloquent about this one:
'Wells’s movie ripples and shimmers like a swimming pool of mystery; the way Wells captures mood and moment, never labouring the point or forcing the pace, reminded me of the young Lucrecia Martel. With remarkable confidence, she just lets her movie unspool naturally, like a haunting and deceptively simple short story. The details accumulate; the images reverberate; the unshowy gentleness of the central relationship inexorably deepens in importance.'

[niallh]

Can't really remember the last time a movie made me cry multiple times throughout the day just by replaying memories and thinking about what I had seen and just feeling heartbroken by what I watched.

[lewisgalloway]

The last few moments of this film were absolutely heartbreaking. After realising the full reality of the situation during the final dancing scene (this is our last dance), it gave me chills. I had suspected this was where it was going the entire movie but just when it felt like it was getting better that's when it knocked me down.

Now so many things make sense retrospectively; the walking in front of the bus without caring, walking into the waves (which I suspect may be the future over what he really did that night), the balcony scene all told that story. The dancefloor made me think that he had gone through trauma when it was actually just her memory. The ending where he walks into the dancefloor - her memory - took a bit for me to get but as soon as I realised, it hit me.

It seemed slow at times while watching it but I know it would not be slow on the second watch knowing what I know now. Such a good film.

[ryanx]

The scene where his daughter is telling him how sometimes she feels down and he is mid way through brushing his teeth, when he spits out toothpaste aggressively at his own reflection in the mirror is pinpoint accurate of how depression makes you feel when listening to someone else say they're feeling low. Beautiful but desperately sad film.

[danevans]

Incredible film. So subtle, yet so emotional. No real dramatics, but so an emotional rollerball throughout. We learn so much about Frankie and Calum and yet have so many questions. Simply astounding. Paul and Frankie make their father and daughter roles look absolutely effortless. An all time great masterpiece.

[BenPole]

It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen this picture, still to the day it’s affected me. For someone who struggled to articulate how I feel to my close ones and after one thing and another happening and also having moved back into my parents house and me struggling to explain at times how I feel, this film managed to explain a condition I have, of which I can’t properly describe to my closest.

I saw this is Leicester’s Phoenix cinema (shout out), and I let the staff sweep up the popcorn and spilt drinks around me for 15 minutes after the credits rolled. I was unaware.
Maybe this hit a nerve more for me than others, but as I had made my parents watch this they hugged me so tight I’d thought I’d been born again.

[pinkgregory]

I physically ached after I got up after this film. Like there's so much of yourself processing it while you're watching not very much happen at all. Incredible.

[ecroxsandoz]

I know most people are talking about "Under Pressure" scene but the scene just before that, when they are sitting at the table with a polaroid photograph appearing is also just brilliant.

The song that was used in that scene is called "Gamsiz Hayat" by a Turkish artist that was released in 2002. So just around the time movie takes place and it would be broadcasted everywhere in Turkey at the time including this type of summer resorts. Unlike its upbeat tempo, the lyrics is all about someone who is hiding their problems and creating this carefree facade while suffering deep inside and how "life" sets up different traps for us all and doesn't care about our tears.

I know director mentioned majority of the crew were Turkish so one of them must have suggested to use that song but I just cant think of a better song to be used in that scene. What a brilliant recommendation/choice.

[Rgdonaire_]

This film touched me deeper than any other movie I can recall. It hits hard specially if you’re a father and you have some personal struggles.

[eibbore]

“It’s like remembering something that didn’t happen to you but you kind of feel like it did”
I thought this was just me because I’m a 90’s kid, brunette, from Scotland who is now the age of the father. This felt like I was watching a weird version of my childhood on screen which was deeply overwhelming and uncomfortable. I think I need to see it again.

[girafingo]

Mark's review sums it up 100% - an absolutely stunning film that reaffirms your faith in filmmaking.

[thensome]

I don't want to overstate it, but this film has been one of the best I have seen in the last 20 years.

[lukewhitticase]

The final shot of this film absolutely ruined me. Had to sit for a while as the credits rolled just to dry my eyes. Just heartbreakingly powerful.