It is, to try and be as direct as possible, a singularly stunning visualisation of a lifetime of love and self-loathing, of gratitude and the weight that brings to bear on the shoulders of someone who never believed they deserved a single beautiful thing in their life.
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Though it’s clear that Callum dotes on his daughter, and vice-versa, there is a constant tension between the father he is trying to be and the man that he is as a result of his turbulent childhood and a gnawing sense that he can’t reconcile how young he is with how old he feels.
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In the most candid moment of the film, Sophie asks Callum about his 11th birthday, and we learn that his parents didn’t even remember it, let alone celebrate it. This is revealed in the black mirror of a turned-off TV, true life captured in a dimension accessible by memory alone.
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It’s a memory that clearly hurts and has shaped Callum, an act of neglect that’s doubtless spurred him to try and give his daughter everything he never had - even if, as she reminds him, he can’t always afford to. It hurt me to watch, because… well… my parents forgot my 13th.
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No card, no cake, no nothing - I spent the day in my room, playing games and counting how many Facebook friends said happy birthday, knowing no number I hit could fill the hole of that denied affection.
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It’s always hurt me, but I didn’t realise just how much until my little girl was born. I look at Matilda and I never want to look away; I hold her and never want to not feel her weight bearing on my chest, her hair tickling my chin. How could I ever do anything but just love her?
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And yet, because of a love I was denied growing up, every loving moment we share breaks me just a little inside - and when she lets the light she brings into this world shine back on me in any way, I can’t really help but fall apart. Which, waffling done, leads me to *THE* shot.
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Sophie has just corralled some poor unsuspecting holidaymakers into singing happy birthday to her dad, which he looks down at not with awkward glee, but instead with a sort of screwed up incredulity that Mescal masterfully captures in his tense physicality and searching eyes.
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This cross-fades into a shot of Callum alone in his hotel room, hunched as if barely holding himself together, sobbing and breaking down. It’s a whirlwind of emotions, and a scene that again hurts, because it’s one I have myself lived.
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It’s the moment that the tower of strength you have tried to build from your broken parts for your baby falls apart and crumbles, when years of pain and an overwhelming wish to be free of it in the present knocks you out. Callum doesn’t believe he deserves the love that he feels.
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His parents forgot his birthday; he can’t really afford that nice rug; he can’t reconcile the love he has for his daughter with the depression he is consumed by, with the sense that life has dealt him a hand he is grateful for but unequipped to play in a way he can be proud of.
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And yet, for all the messiness and question marks left hanging over Callum and Sophie and what becomes of their relationship, Aftersun emerges as a poignant paean to the unique bond that exists between a father and his daughter, to love, and to the moments that truly matter.
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