When it comes to film production companies, A24 has always stood out due to its long history of highly praised films. Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies are just two of the critically acclaimed films produced by A24 in 2022; the other two are X and Pearl, the first two parts of a horror trilogy directed by Ti West. Aftersun, the first feature film by Charlotte Wells, has been bought by A24, giving the distribution company access to what is sure to be another highly sought-after picture.
The teaser for the new film directed by Wells has just been published, and its concept promises to make audiences cry. The trailer opens with a happy, yet melancholy, the memory of a father and daughter’s connection. The preview focused on Sophie’s fond recollections of a trip she took to Turkey with her father, Calum, in the late 1990s; nevertheless, she is gradually losing those fond memories despite their continued vividness, which may indicate that their relationship is failing.
Sophie, then 11 years old, will recount her memories of time spent with her doting father in this film. Two decades later, though, she begins to wonder if her father’s recollections really reflect the man he has become. Having premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Aftersun has already been praised by critics and audiences alike. Variety’s Chase Hutchinson called it “one of the most magnificent entrants of the year,” while Variety’s David Edelstein said it will “repeat in your memory for time everlasting.” As part of Cannes’ Critics’ Week, Aftersun won the French Touch Jury Prize.
The film not only won the Grand Prize but also the Critics’ Prize, at the Deauville Film Festival. Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, and Celia Rowlson-Hall are the film’s main protagonists. The film is not autobiographical, but the writer-director told Deadline that her connection with her own father was influential in developing Aftersun.
According to the filmmaker, “it was absolutely always the basis of it.” The plot centres around a young father and his daughter taking a vacation together. When I was thinking about what my first feature should be, I was going through old family photos, and I guess that’s where the idea came from. At the beginning of the writing process, two characters were on holiday vacations together. Wells told Deadline that the film’s script started out as a “conventionally structured story about these two individuals who go on holiday in this very constrained, weird region and then find cause to leave it and kind of investigate the world that they are in.” Like, it became more grounded in personal recollections of times gone by, not merely seasonal ones from childhood.
Though I’d been working on the concept and setting the stage for the universe for some time, I let it guide the structure of the first draught of the screenplay. It’s safe to assume that the film’s promise to take audiences on an emotional trip is well founded, given the author’s approach to writing and the positive reception to the trailer. On October 21, the movie will be released.
Synopsis
Sophie, 11, and her idealistic and loving father, Calum, spend some quality time together in a failing resort (Paul Mescal). Behind her back, Calum is buckling under the pressures of adulthood as the world of adolescence unfolds before her eyes. Charlotte Wells’ outstanding and searingly poignant debut film follows Sophie as she struggles to reconcile the father she knew with the guy she didn’t via her loving recollections of their final trip twenty years earlier.