Despite its systemic flaws, there’s much to love about the Oscars this year. While everyone is looking at blockbusters like ‘Top Gun: Maverick,’ a few smaller-scale movies have also found a large audience. And then there’s a dark horse that no one sees coming, like Paul Mescal in ‘Aftersun.’
Paul Mescal is nominated for Best Actor at the 95th Annual Academy Awards. Mescal stars as Calum, a young father on vacation to Turkey with his 11-year-old daughter Sophie, played by Frankie Coiro. ‘Aftersun‘ by director Charlotte Wells is a story of a daughter struggling with generational resentment and trauma.
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‘Aftersun’: Understanding Parents As People With Problems
Between the birdsong and the stuttering of the VHS tape, a daughter finds an incarnation of the father she saw on vacation once upon a time in ‘Aftersun.’ An adult Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) a vacation she took with her dad Calum (Paul Mescal) to Turkey during the 90s. Despite his best efforts, Calum’s internal and external struggles prevent him from connecting with his daughter. In the moments of isolation, we find Calum barely holding on to the state of his mental health. The daughter, who is more self-assured and self-reliant, doesn’t see through the charade of normalcy.
The daughter doesn’t know it yet, but her father’s frailty becomes her impediment to love. She will grow up wanting to be anything but her father, but that’s what she will return to. And sadly, she does. Calum is not a bad father, just an unsuccessful one. He’s non-emotive yet loving and wants the best for her daughter. Adults feel and fall and fail, a lesson that rings true in the gloom of Sophie’s adult life.
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‘Aftersun’ Ending: Dancing The Demons Away
Toward the end of their trip, they attend an open dance. Calum invites Sophie to dance to David Bowie’s ‘Under Pressure.’ Calum and Sophie are desperate to connect but don’t know how. Only by indulging in the mutual silliness of their last dance will they come out clean as the day and find their place after the sun shines on them. But here is when the past and the present collide. She desperately pushes her father away from the dancefloor, the last place where they share a loving moment.
Memory is a funny place, and ‘Aftersun‘ nudges us into unshakable moments of sadness. But it finds its undeniable humanity by wanting to dance to the music of others. ‘Aftersun‘ is a blurry reminiscence of the sorrows of a man who hides in plain sight. Sophie finds her father trying to move despite his parental paralysis, all while coming to terms with her sense of self. Paul Mescal as Calum gives a staggeringly heartbreaking performance that deserves all the praise in the world. ‘Aftersun,’ despite its lesser know status, is a modern masterpiece.
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