Review of Aftersun (2022) by Moviemitch96 — 12 Nov 2022

A woman reflects on a vacation she took with her father in Turkey as a child and tries to recall through faded memories and camcorder footage the man she saw as her father vs. the man she sees him as as an adult.

Before even going into this gem, I had a gut feeling it was going to be special and tender in ways I couldn't quite describe or fathom. And after walking out of the theater in an almost trance-like state, I can confidently confirm that it's almost everything I imagined and expected it to be and then some.

Gentle, tender, quiet, and subtly heartbreaking, it's a film that made me dig deep into several long-dormant memories and recollections of my childhood, family, divorce, relationship with my parents and especially my father during that time, etc.

It's the rare film that's made me rethink and revisit so many long-buried and left behind memories that I either never had the answers to (and probably never will) and makes me see certain things in a new and different light (for better or worse.

) Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio are such a loving and heart-melting pairing here as father and daughter. Although cryptic in parts, I believe it's one of those films where it's up to you to take away your own personal meaning from it, which I most certainly did.

Overall, I'd say it's entirely possible that I've witnessed my new favorite film of the year so far, but it goes so much farther and deeper beyond that. It's a film I can tell that will almost certainly stay with and haunt me indefinitely (again, for better or worse.