Something to watch tonight: Aftersun

I come to you now from the sleepy city of Sydney in Australia where I am exper­i­en­cing that weird mix of being sick – I’ve been cough­ing for about ten days straight – and also on holiday.

Yesterday, I paid the eye-watering amount of A$29 to go and see Supergirl at a lunch­time week­day screen­ing so I can review it for RNZ’s Nights pro­gramme (tonight) and, friends, how is this pos­sible? Never have I been more grate­ful for the sup­port I get from cinemas and dis­trib­ut­ors in Aotearoa to be able to do this work. I’m pretty sure that if RNZ had to reim­burse paid movie tick­ets for all their review­ers each week the whole sys­tem would collapse.

Anyway, it has been brought to my atten­tion that Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun has landed on TVNZ+ in New Zealand – a film I described for RNZ’s At the Movies in March 2023 as “Not only one of the very best films of the 21^st cen­tury, so far, but one of my favour­ite films of all time.”

This is one of those reviews that was turned into an art­icle for the RNZ web­site, so you can read/listen to it there, but here’s an extract:

It’s the turn of the 21^st cen­tury and eleven-year-old Sophie is tak­ing a hol­i­day to Turkey with her dad Calum. Calum and Sophie are Scottish (from Edinburgh) but Calum no longer lives with them, he’s try­ing to make some­thing hap­pen for him­self in England. But this week togeth­er is import­ant to them both.

Calum, played with aston­ish­ing grace by Academy Award nom­in­ated Paul Mescal, is a lov­ing fath­er and even signs off his calls to Sophie’s moth­er with “I love you”, some­thing that Sophie notices. In fact, she notices a lot – she’s at that age – but there are con­nec­tions she can’t make, some­thing that con­tin­ues to trouble grown-up Sophie, through whose emo­tion­al memor­ies the story is told.

For the first few scenes of the film, Calum is often slightly out of frame or out of focus or shot from behind or in a mir­ror, emphas­ising that these are Sophie’s memor­ies and that like all memor­ies they are incom­plete, a puzzle that con­tin­ues to be put togeth­er over time.

But then are sec­tions when Calum appears full frame and face on, often in scenes when Sophie isn’t present. Does that mean he is clear­er to her in her ima­gin­a­tion than in her memories?

Also reviewed in that par­tic­u­lar At the Movies show: Elizabeth Banks’ weird and won­der­ful Cocaine Bear and the sequel to the unlikely smash-hit Fisherman’s Friends 2: One and All.

Where to watch Aftersun

Physical media: The Madman Blu-ray is out-of-print at the dis­trib­ut­or but there’s a seller on TradeMe who has a copy.

Aotearoa: Streaming on TVNZ+ (free with ads) or Mubi

Australia: Streaming on SBS On Demand (free) or Mubi

Canada: Streaming on CBC Gem (free) or Mubi

Ireland: Streaming on Netflix or Mubi

India: Streaming on Mubi

USA: Streaming on Roku (free with ads)

UK: Streaming on BBC iPlayer (free), Netflix or Mubi