A deceptively simple, gentle and ultimately heart-wrenching story about father and daughter, brimming with hidden darkness and questions that memories cannot answer.
Eleven-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) is on holiday with her dad Calum (Paul Mescal), who is no longer with Sophie’s mother back in Edinburgh and now resides in England. This trip to sunny Turkey is a rare chance for Sophie to spend time with her father; it is also heavily implied to be some kind of last farewell, though young Sophie is not aware of it at the time.
In a way, this stunningly assured debut from Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells is really about grown-up Sophie. We see glimpses of her older self throughout, mainly appearing under the flickering strobe lights of a nightclub that seems to represent Sophie’s own mind, full of flashes of memories that briefly illuminate the unknowable darkness. She keeps playing and replaying the VHS tape of the trip, trying to reconstruct the full picture of her father from the old footage, her own memories, and the power of imagination and empathy.
As an adult viewer, you quickly sense that something is not right with Calum, starting with an uncomfortably long take of Calum isolated and silent on the balcony of their hotel room early on. There are subtle hints that he’s in the grip of severe depression he desperately wants to hide from his daughter, and create nothing but good happy memories from their time together. There are also telling moments when Calum has no will or energy to maintain his facade, that mostly go unnoticed by Sophie. It’s not that she’s insensitive, it’s just that as children, we’re generally incapable of seeing our parents as real people with real struggles. Sophie can sense when Calum is unhappy, but she can only relate it to something she said or did.
There’s also a gently observed coming-of-age story about Sophie leaving the innocent world of childhood behind, and exploring the world in a more independent way, as a separate person. She’s scornful of her father’s suggestion that she should make friends with younger children, preferring to hang around with the older teenagers at the resort and watch them flirt, drink and kiss. She spies on older girls through a keyhole as they frankly discuss their sexual experiences, and has a romantic encounter with a boy her own age.
This quiet movie is virtually without plot, as Calum and Sophie do all the normal, mundane things families do on a relaxing beach holiday. The movie perfectly captures the languid tempo of life at a resort, and a feeling that’s both dislocated and pleasurable. There’s a natural, effortless rapport and comfortable energy between Corio and Mescal that’s just beautiful to watch, and their characters share playful banter and experiences that feel genuinely joyous. They highlight even more so the deeper undercurrent of despair that comes closer and closer to the surface, without ever breaking it. All throughout the movie, you’re waiting for some kind of tragedy to happen, and the fact that it never does somehow makes the story even more devastating.
This deep want for answers one can never get finds an outlet in the movie’s incredible climax, as Sophie’s past and present combine and merge to the sounds of Queen’s Under Pressure. I may never be able to listen to this song again without my mind going back to this movie and the profound heartbreak of this scene.
P.S. Speaking of soundtrack, my 90s-kid heart skipped a beat at Catatonia’s Road Rage, Blur’s Tender, Never Ever by All Saints, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, heck even Macarena.
P.P.S. I’m not sure if I find Paul Mescal attractive exactly, but his magnificent side profile wouldn’t look out of place on an ancient Roman coin or statue. The camera sure loves it, in this movie and in Normal People where he played another vulnerable, psychologically complex character.
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