AFTERSUN

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B

It feels sort of crazy that the film Aftersun is being deemed “a masterpiece” by virtually every critic alive—the critical consensus was, indeed, the very thing that compelled me to go see it—and yet it is almost entirely lost on me.

I suppose “almost” is the key word there, especially the more I think about the film, and peruse other people’s reactions to it. As a rule I try not to get other people’s takes before I lay out my own review, but I was hoping to get a sense of what I was missing.

And, perhaps I have. Deep into this film, after long stretches of seemingly mundane vignettes of a father-daughter vacation, the daughter 11 years old and the father turning 31, a passage of dialogue came along that felt like the biggest hint. It’s Sophie, the 11-year-old, who says this:

“I just feel a bit down or something. Don’t you ever feel like you’ve just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and feel tired and down and feels like your bones don’t work. …everything is tired. Like you’re sinking. I don’t know, it’s weird.”

And it’s after this, finally, that you begin to get hints of an emotion struggle suffered by Calum (Paul Mescal), the father. It slowly comes to light that he is protecting Sophie from them, and on the few occasions when Sophie asks him about his childhood, he’s very guarded.

Still, I keep coming back to those lines of dialogue Sophie says. I’m developing a theory that this gets to the heart of why Aftersun didn’t particularly move me, or really even reach me. I’m finding countless examples online of people stating how it “floored” them or “wiped them out,” I suspect because of how deeply they relate. And this is the thing: I’m surrounded by people with mental health struggles, people with depression, and it often seems like a majority of people suffer from some form of it. But I am just not wired that way. I can even have what I feel is a fully realistic, fatalistic view of the world, and I can still have a good time with ease, and I literally don’t lose any sleep over it. I sleep quite soundly.

I’m not trying to brag here. I’m just trying to illustrate how I could have seen the credits roll on this movie and immediately think, …I don’t get it. I was genuinely bored a whole lot of the time, until seemingly out of nowhere Calum walks to the beach, and then straight into the ocean. I truly thought he was committing suicide, clear through the point at which Sophie, roused from sleep in the hotel lobby, is given a key by a staffer and escorted to her hotel room. She walks in and there he lay, face down on the bed and completely naked, passed out. After the otherwise wholesome vacation days together in which I kept wondering what kind of shoe was going to drop, this was a jarring sight. Sophie, unperturbed, just throws the sheets over him and lays down on the smaller cot he had to order for himself.

I have a feeling I might gain a much deeper understanding of Aftersun with repeat viewing, and perhaps my takes as they are now are wildly unfair. On the other hand, I might also argue that I shouldn’t have to watch a movie more than once to understand it. Plenty of other people clearly understand it, and take its final five minutes as a deeply poignant revelation that I still can’t effectively parse. So, I leave this movie feeling like maybe I’m just not depressed enough for it.

Apparently it’s actually very dark, but I’m just too busy being contented with my life to notice it.

Overall: B