Our Last Dance. 4 / 5
Directed by Charlotte Wells.
Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier.
An intimate time machine of a film transports you back to summer friendships, innocent self-discovery and the distinctive lingering smell of Aftersun.
Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio have such a beautiful connection as father and daughter as we look back on the memories of a family holiday through rose-tinted glasses. But through pixelated home camera footage and melancholic reflection, we see that there was so much hidden beneath the surface that only reveals itself after the fact.
The performances both break your heart and attempt to put it together - Mescal sheltering his daughter from his struggles and Corio desperately holding on to joy in fear of what happens if she lets go.
Such an emotional gut punch of a film that really takes its time to sink in. The final act just tears you in two as the weight that has been slowly building comes crashing down.
Like a polaroid slowly developing, we slowly begin to see the full picture.
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