REVIEW: AFTERSUN

4/5

Sunblock.

101 Mins. Starring: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio & Celia Rowlson-Hall. Director: Charlotte Wells. In: Theatres. 

Screen 'Aftersun' and the after effects will burn you. What looks like a sunny family holiday on the surface hides the darkness of depression within and the raw nature of grief itself. In a definitive directorial debut, Charlotte Wells gives us an Academy Award nominated classic and Cannes favourite. Finally, here in Japan, as the current Cannes festival is presiding. This coming-of-age drama set in the 90s gave 'Normal People' Paul Mescal an Oscar nomination he looked sleeper favourite to win. And this scorched summer holiday is akin to the 'Streetcar Named Desire' revival stars 'Lost Daughter' with Olivia Coleman. But it's the daughter herself, played perfectly by a revelatory Frankie Corio and the older version in Celia Rowlson-Hall, that should have also found an award amongst all this sand and sea. 

From the moment this Mubi, A24, 'Moonlight' Barry Jenkins produced co-sign comes into play with the whirring of a camcorder, you just know you're watching the recording of a classic until it snaps shut. It's not just for the nostalgia of a soundtrack featuring 90s Brit classics like The Lightning Seeds, Catatonia, All Saints, Steps, Chumbawamba and Queen and David Bowie for a classic dance. Not to mention Damon Albarn singing "oh, my baby" and how "love is the greatest" (it really is) tenderly as your tape player blurs into low battery like it used to demonically drone. Let's not forget Aqua, Bran Van 3000's 'Drinking In LA', or an REM loss of faith either, for the best karaoke yearn since Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson 'Lost In Translation' in Tokyo. All for another heartbreak hotel of lost souls trying to find more than a postcard portrait of a sunny life from their room with a view. 

The music, as always, tells one part of the story. The subtlety in this quiet devastating drama does the rest of the work, as we are left with the emotional heavy-lifting to unpack in a film that will stay with you and the questions you have yourself in your own life's reflection. You're not given everything here, because that's what true classics do to you. What real works of art take from you as you take from it what you will in an imperfect portrait. This is how 'Aftersun' rises above melodrama and the likes of 'The Father' sequel 'The Son', and even the Best Actor Oscar winning (Brendan Fraser) 'The Whale' to be the most real and raw movie of the year. What is the true meaning of the sober euphoria of the rave scenes? What happens to (we should really state this as 'redacted')? Where do they really go in the end? We've already said too much. The rest is on you to see and believe for yourself in the deafening space between what's not said. 

What we can tell you is Wells is a wonderful director and the next, great talent with this Brits abroad look at Turkey in the summer of our nostalgia. Mescal is mesmerizing as a loving and doting, but serious father, troubled with some naked truths and one of the most searing displays of real manhood you'll ever see...in the tears of all its humanity. Rowlson-Hall also wows with limited but lingering screen-time behind the scenes. Yet it's Frankie Corio who really comes of age and stage. Iconic like the summer evening of one photographic moment at the table for your flashbulb memory, she represents the joy of youth and the desire to be older that is somewhat wasted on the young when really they don't want this trip to come to an end. All as this movie truly displays the heartbreak and hurt of saying goodbye at airports for so long. 

From playing pool to riding arcade motorbikes in thigh touching distance, Corio's character is this close to adulthood. Juxtaposed with her 30-year-old father on the eve of his birthday wondering where it all went and what's happened to his divorced and down life. Yet, there's still so much love from and for this jolly good fellow who just want to have fun, no matter how he feels. And so say all the critics. There's a detached nature to this film that mirrors life as we know it whether on a resort, or alone in our room. Maybe we are losing ourselves in the white noise of the crowd, or our own minds. Either way, as we try to break free from this life and the pressures we are under we should not forget about family. Those who are always with us. Whether by our side, or in bittersweet, beautiful memory. Never forgotten like childhood nostalgia forever gone. Hold them close like lotion rubbed caringly into skin, because after the sun, they will still remain, just as close. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Further Filming: 'Moonlight', 'The Lost Daughter', 'Lost In Translation'.