In a year already incredibly filled with memory movies about directors returning to their childhoods, the common theme is our older statesmen figures who have in many cases already won multiple best director Oscars finally telling a version of their lives; Spielberg, Cuaron, Iñárritu. That is not the case here. In each of these cases again these films are rather epic tales as much as they are insular. Again, I comment, that is not the case here. With her directorial debut Charlotte Wells has written and directed a beautiful and touching remembrance of a holiday she once took when she was 11 and her dad celebrated his 31st birthday, this remembrance comes to the character of Sophie (our Wells stand-in) on the eve of her 31st birthday.
Wells as a writer and director here makes a mighty stamp and is certainly already one to watch and keep an eye on. This is filmically very accomplished work and stands Wells up immediately as a director of great ability at capturing the small pained moments that make up real life. The story here is indeed one based in part on her own life and those glimpses of truth across its multi-media presentation offer a touching remembrance, if not a wholly expansive one. Wells has made here an incredibly specific and delicate portrayal that never pushes too hard or fabricates great dramas. This is simply a tender document of real life. Wells as a director has their work cemented by the beautiful and incredibly picturesque cinematography of Gregory Oke who captures as much beauty at times out of the beautiful Turkish vistas of the holiday as he does at times the smallest parts of our leads bodies, or the smallest details on an item. Wells with Oke has made a film almost entirely about the micro, where the macro is not entirely of any interest to her, but is just clearly not the focus of this feature. The film presents itself sometimes flitting in and out of VHS footage shot on the holiday and frequently feels in the staging and photography of the film like a collection of snapshot images, at times even made by an eleven year old. All of this is further brought to its effecting power by the editing of Blair McClendon, who with Wells makes a series of choices with the cutting and fades of the film that pack some truly impactful punches in their juxtaposition or mirroring.
The film also boats two stellar lead performances by Frankie Corio as the 11 year old Sophie and Paul Mescal as her father. Corio is stunning, charming, touching and truthful as the young Sophie and is just as powerful without much presentation as she is outwardly funny and charming. It’s a really, really great child performance and when paired in her scenes with her father is something very realistic and powerful indeed. Mescal as the father is the emotional core of the film and the film plays very sensitively and with complexities about the period of depression that Mescal’s Calum Paterson is experiencing. What Sophie does and does not see and what we as an audience do and don’t see is the crux of the film’s emotionality and pain. Both Corio and Mescal are really great and Wells has made a very solid directorial debut, however overall a film this soft and delicate and tender with as little focus as it puts on major events, can feel at times a little slight, no matter how much it is a really beautiful and touching piece of film.
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A very solid 8/10 debut that is so touchingly delicate and beautiful that the decision is made and clear of what we are seeing, this is no great blowout holiday, this is no final time these people will ever be together, there is very little drama it has to be said. This is a simple, small and tender film that presents a truthful excursion with passion and truth, but also in the end can’t help but feeling so soft and truthful that it feels a little slight.
P.S. Maybe this film has been so well received because in all those major and minor ways I haven’t seen a project since the first series of Benidorm to accurately present a U.K family abroad story. A half-joke, but only half.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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