Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun is a film that lingers like a fading Polaroid soft around the edges, yet devastating in its quiet clarity. At its core, it’s a story about the fragile nature of memory, the unspoken love between a father and daughter, and the painful distance that grows between what we remember and what was truly there.

Paul Mescal delivers a career-defining performance as Calum, a young, struggling father on a budget holiday in Turkey with his 11-year-old daughter Sophie (a remarkable Frankie Corio). On the surface, it’s a simple vacation poolside afternoons, karaoke nights, and awkward attempts at bonding. But beneath the sun-drenched nostalgia, there’s an aching melancholy, a sense that Calum is fighting a battle Sophie can’t yet see.

Wells’ direction is masterful in its restraint. She doesn’t force emotion; she lets it seep through the cracks of mundane moments a father dancing alone in a darkened room, a shared smile over breakfast, the way a camcorder’s grainy footage both preserves and distorts the past. The film’s structure, cutting between Sophie’s childhood memories and her adult self (Celia Rowlson-Hall) trying to piece together who her father really was, creates a haunting tension. We know, long before Sophie does, that this holiday is a fleeting moment of light before something darker.

The cinematography by Gregory Oke bathes the Turkish resort in a dreamlike glow, making the past feel both vivid and impossibly distant. The soundtrack, peppered with 90s hits, adds to the bittersweet nostalgia, but it’s the original score by Oliver Coates that truly pierces the heart a melancholic hum that underscores the film’s quiet sorrow.

Aftersun isn’t a film that explains itself. It doesn’t offer tidy answers about Calum’s pain or Sophie’s grief. Instead, it trusts the audience to sit with the ambiguity, to feel the weight of what goes unsaid. By the time the final frames dissolve into that unforgettable use of Under Pressure, the emotional dam breaks. You’re left with the crushing realization that love isn’t always enough to save someone and that sometimes, remembering is the most painful act of all.