Aftersun – a little gem of a film with two dynamite leads and more than one puzzle at its heart – picked up an Oscar nomination and three BAFTA nominations this year.
Writer-director Charlotte Wells chats to Simon Morris about the father-daughter relationship at the centre of the movie.
Simon Morris: Have you been surprised at how well [Aftersun] has been doing worldwide? I counted up 155 nominations and 59 wins according to Google.
Charlotte Wells: Yes, I have been surprised I don't think any of us really saw this coming or saw the film having the reach that it's had but it's certainly nothing to complain about.
SM: Who are Sophie and Calum?
CW: Sophie and Calum are father and daughter; Sophie is 11, and Calum is 30, about to turn 31 on this holiday. They don't live together so this is treasured time that they are spending on holiday, which we learn they do every year, go on holiday together.
And they are close. From the moment that we see them. We see his broken arm resting on her on the bus as they travel from the airport to the hotel late at night. And it is a warm and loving relationship.
SM: It seems an idyllic holiday. But there's a slight sense that there's a bit of pressure, particularly on Calum. Can you explain that at all?
CW: Over the course of the film it is gradually revealed that Calum is struggling privately in a way that he goes to great lengths to protect Sophie from.
SM: It took me a while to notice another thing, though anyone under 25 would have spotted it immediately - no cell phones. There are no cell phones at all on this on this holiday.
CW: The film is told unobtrusively, but definitively, from the point of view, or at least the overarching point of view of Sophie as an adult, 20 years later.
So she is reflecting upon this week, this last holiday that she spent with her dad in the late 1990s when they were joyously cell phone-free.
SM: You save up the revelation of whose memory it is - Sophie's memory, as you say - until nearly the end of the movie.
CW: It is. But it's interesting because I think different people perceive that at different points in the film. And that's been one of the most interesting parts of sharing the film with audiences - seeing how people's individual experiences that they have with family, with life, shape their perception of it.
Certainly, it was our intention that that perspective does build over the course of the film, that it builds through these recurring rave sequences that we see. So that when you discover at the end that it is in fact, Sophie, as an adult watching these tapes, it isn't necessarily a gotcha moment, but something we've been slowly building towards, that it feels in some sense, inevitable.
Charlotte Wells Photo: DIMITRIOS KAMBOURIS
SM: The pair of them are so loving and so likeable, And yet for me, at any rate, there seemed a faint feeling of not dread exactly, but a bit nervousness, the fact that it was all a bit too good to be true. And I kept thinking, I hope something ghastly doesn't happen. Was that a deliberate thing?
CW: That speaks to this idea that when you reflect upon a moment, a memory that is straightforwardly one emotion, so that emotion is joy, is complicated with this new lens that you have this separation of time, Whether it's 10 days, 10 months, 10 years, 20 years, as is the case here.
So moments are complicated by [the fact] that they are seen from two perspectives. They're seen from within the simplicity of the moment and the complexity of being reflected upon many years later. And I think it brings a feeling that at times feels like dread, because adult Sophie, she knows what's coming. She knows there is an imminent loss in a certain way.
SM: I was watching Sophie all the time thinking 'Oh no, don't get into trouble'. Whereas, in fact, I should have been perhaps looking at Calum, the one whose life seems to be about to fall into disarray in some way.
CW: Yeah, it's tricky. We were definitely aware of that through every stage from writing, and production to post-production, the expectations that audiences might be bringing [to the story] based on other films and other media.
[For example] that sense that an 11-year-old is somehow inherently at risk or the ubiquity of the deadbeat dad on screen who is absent or estranged. He's absent from her life in the sense that they don't live together.
But again, it was important to me to represent a father who was great at being a father, like that is something that Calum finds a real sense of purpose in and strength in.
And I think they give each other something that they don't get elsewhere. And that's what makes that relationship so special to each of them, that they're the best versions of themselves when the other is around.
SM: How early in the pre-production did you discover Paul Mescal, who's up for all the awards at the moment?
CW: We made final casting decisions, I think around March, and we began to shoot in May, so a couple of months ahead of time. But it had been a long process. And we started with Sophie, it was a six-month process to find Sophie, which we knew would be true.
And I worked with Lucy [Pardee], my casting director who has an extraordinary talent at finding discoveries, especially children who have never performed before.
And that's how we found Frankie [Corio], she really was a hard-won discovery, had this talent she had no idea she possessed, never acted before, not even in a school play.
But I think what was interesting over the course of casting was finding that 11 really is this precipice between childhood and adolescence.
But the same was true of Calum, we realised that we were looking for somebody occupying this middle ground between one stage of life and another, leaving young adulthood and entering a more serious stage of life, I suppose into his 30s.
SM: I only knew Paul Mescal from the lockdown hit Normal People.
CW: That's where I knew him from, alongside I think just about everybody else. And I had the opportunity to meet him. We had an amazing conversation, he was committed right away to the role, to the character and was so thoughtful and prepared and made it clear that he would be a great partner.
And that's always what I'm looking for; collaborators who can make the work better, who are willing to be pushed and pushed, and together to realise the best version of the project.
And that's certainly what I found in Paul, he was tremendous to work with. He's also an excellent actor, always striving to be better.
CW: They're a good group of kids. And, I don't know, I was interested in portraying something that felt somewhat authentic to my experience, that wasn't punctuated by excessive drama just for the sake of making a film. Where the drama and the tension really relate to people's internal state of mind and internal conflicts.
That's the kind of conflict that I'm interested in as a writer and as a filmmaker, and it's hard sometimes to communicate on screen and it requires walking a knife edge of subtlety sometimes not to fall too dangerously on either side.
SM: Why is it called Aftersun?
CW: I'm not sure if this is also true for you, but certainly in the UK 'after sun' is the lotion that you apply after burning your skin inevitably as soon as you step into the sun.
And that was just the title, it was in reference to the lotion. And it was always Aftersun. And I find that titles either come easily or never at all. And it was always Aftersun.
It's been intriguing to hear people's interpretations of why it might be an appropriate title. But for me, it just always was, and my collaborators seemed convinced enough to allow it to go forward.
The thing about Calum's struggle, and the way that it's portrayed in the film, and the way that it is, to some degree held at arm's length in the film is that because this is a recollection, this is Sophie, looking back, there's a sense in which the scenes in which Calum is alone are imagined, you know, Sophie filling in the gap with information acquired through time, the loss acquired through time.
Certainly, for me, this is the last time that they spent together and so she doesn't have full access to Calum, and it is about the fact that parents remain unknowable to some degree.
And I think Paul speaks really nicely also to the fact that Calum doesn't fully understand what's going on. He knows that he succumbs at times to these feelings of intense desperation, but can't necessarily articulate why.
And that's, you know, a central part of the film, there are no easy answers when it comes to crises of mental health. And there are no easy answers here.
SM: The farewell at the airport is just devastating, I thought.
CW: It is. It's a farewell. And it is her letting him go to some degree, but I think it's also about the love that endures and what he gave her and what can transcend loss.
SM: I have to ask if this is the era of the small, perfectly formed feature film. I'm looking down the list of the Oscars and the BAFTA, and there's an awful lot of really low-budget films tucked away in there behind the Tom Cruise spectaculars and things like that.
CW: Yeah, it's a real mix. I mean, certainly, it's also a time where $200 million films are kind of in the same spaces. But you know, it's great to know that audiences are willing to show up for films that are produced with less money than that and that audiences have been willing to show up for this.
I'm looking to continue to use film as a means of genuine artistic expression, I'm not sure what's next, but I know that it will be a process of discovery when I finally have the space and time to face that blank page once again.
