2022 · Charlotte Wells · 101 min

Aftersun

“A holiday video played back by someone who now knows how it ends.”

Almost nothing happens and it wrecked me anyway. Wells shoots a cheap Turkish resort like an archive: sun loungers, a camcorder, a father doing tai chi badly on a balcony. The film keeps its distance from Calum on purpose, because Sophie only ever had the surface of him. What gets you is the arithmetic you do quietly in the second half — his age, her age, the songs. By the time the strobe scene arrives it doesn't feel like a device, it feels like the only honest way to picture a person you can no longer reach. I watched it on a Tuesday and did not speak for an hour.

• Quiet
• Drama
• 2020s