On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews Aftersun (2022) — Charlotte Wells’ quietly devastating father-daughter memory piece starring Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio.
In this episode
- Top 5 Holidays: package holiday dread, cancelled flights, family trips, airport memories, and British holiday behaviour at its absolute finest/worst
- Sidey’s Malta anxiety and the curse of relatives who “mog” every conversation
- What the dads watched this week, including Spider-Noir, Is This Thing On?, Heat, and other pre-main-feature detours
- Why Aftersun plays less like a traditional plot and more like an adult trying to decode childhood memory
- Adult Sophie watching old camcorder footage of her holiday with Calum in Turkey
- The recurring rave/strobe imagery and Sophie trying to reach the father she only half-understood
- Calum’s hidden depression: cigarettes, self-help books, Tai Chi, money worries, shame, and emotional withdrawal
- The cheap holiday resort details: rep bus, room mix-up, wristbands, dinner run, pool tables, scuba mask, karaoke and tourist entertainment
- The expensive rug as a possible attempt to leave Sophie something tangible
- The brutal karaoke scene with Losing My Religion
- The final dance to Under Pressure and the airport departure ending
- How the film handles male depression and implied suicide without spelling everything out
- Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio’s performances, and why the film rewards intense viewing
Bad Dads consensus
- Reegs: Loved it — brilliantly made, emotionally precise, dreamlike, and rich in detail
- Sidey: Strong recommend — hugely powerful, very well made, but absolutely not a fun watch
- Dan: Strong recommend, with caveats — found it genuinely hard to sit with because it stirred up memories and difficult emotions
- Cris: Did not meaningfully watch it — put it on, went for a wee, fell asleep, and woke up when it was done
Final take
Aftersun is one of those films the dads admire deeply while also warning listeners to choose their moment carefully. It is quiet, ambiguous and emotionally bruising — a film about memory, parenting, depression, guilt, love and what children only understand years later.
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