Oscar Nominee Film Review: AFTERSUN

The positives of receiving an Oscar Nomination in your film is that it draws audience to it. And in the case of Aftersun, Paul Mescal’s Oscar Nomination for Best Actor gives this film a chance to find an audience.

I just wish it was a better movie.

Aftersun is a bittersweet rememberance film as an adult Sophie reflects on a week’s vacation that she took with her father at a time when the innocence of youth begins to fade and the hero worship of her faultless father starts to fall away.

Most of this film is a flashback to the week’s vacation that Sophie and her estranged father (he’s divorced from Sophie’s mother, who she lives with) took when Sophie was 13-ish. During this vacation, Sophie grows into a young teen and begins to see the chinks in the knight in shining armor that is her image of her father.

Frankie Corio is charming as the young Sophie and this is good for young Ms. Corio is an interesting (enough) presence and the audience firmly roots for her throughout the film. It is the central performance that grounds this film - and it is her remembrances of her father that is at the core of the emotion of this film.

Paul Mescal is Oscar Nominated for Best Actor for her work as her father and it’s a tricky role for him as he must walk the balance between Loving, Perfect Father and Flawed Human Being. Mescal threads this needle well - I expect to see him playing a “charming villain who at first seems to be the good guy but is really the bad guy” in a future SuperHero flick. He is very good in this role.

But Oscar worthy? I don’t think so.

Writer/Director Charlotte Wells helms this picture with a passion for the subject matter. It clearly is a deeply personal picture for her as this movie is loosely based on a personal experience of a holiday she went on with her father and it shows on screen.

This film will pack an emotional wallop for the audience in direct proportion to how much you have a personal childhood memory that this film triggers. It can be deeply emotional, or it can fall flat and the two lead performances are good enough to make this a “fine” film.

It was just “fine” for the BankofMarquis.

Letter Grade: B-

6 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)