Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcil... Read allSophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't...Sophie reflects on the shared joy and private melancholy of a holiday she took with her father twenty years earlier. Memories real and imagined fill the gaps between as she tries to reconcile the father she knew with the man she didn't...
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 94 wins & 177 nominations total
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaCharlotte Wells stated in a recent interview that during the two weeks rehearsal period that the cast and crew had on set in Turkey, there were two read-throughs of the script with just Wells, Paul Mescal (Calum) and Frankie Corio (Sophie). Wells also added that these scripts purposefully did not contain scenes which Mescal has alone, which focus in detail on the depression Calum is experiencing, so that Corio's performance was naive to these facts, just as Sophie is.
- Quotes
Sophie: I think it's nice that we share the same sky.
Calum: What you mean?
Sophie: Well, like... Sometimes at playtime, I look up at the sky and if I can see the Sun then... I think that the fact that we can both see the Sun, so even though we're not actually in the same place and we're not actually together... we kind of are in a way, you know? Like we're both underneath the same sky, so... kind of together.
- SoundtracksHigh Hopes A
Written and Performed by Gerhard Narholz (as Mac Prindy)
Courtesy of Cavendish Music Co. Ltd. on behalf of Sonoton Music GmbH & Co. KG
The film opens with a handy cam footage of Calum where at first glance seems almost happy, until he is posed to answer a question by Sophie. The frame is paused, followed by glitches from the footage as we follow in flashback. Eleven-year-old Sophie vacationing with her dad. It is full of light, happy moments they shared between each other but it always fades into bitterness till the last goodbye.
Don't think this is is yet another traumatic arthouse film with ambiguous narrative that drags out and goes nowhere. I promise you that this plot is smart, will immerse you avidly, sometimes choking on what is happening on the screen. Because it is very difficult to resist drawing parallels with real life. Some might feel this is a personal story or the life story of your friends is woven into the film.
Firstly, the issues raised in the film like the coming-of-age, loneliness are not blown out of proportion or doesn't scream too loud. Even with the chic and sophisticated staging, filters the father-daughter relationship doesn't fall into the stereotypes. The bond between both is shot so beautifully unlike Hollywood directors who strongly exaggerate. On the one hand, i love how the director uses the location to reveal the characters, exposing the emptiness and with famous musical accompanies as background score.
Secondly, kudos for Charlotte Wells as she cleverly registers emotions though it is never explained in dialogues. In fact, very little is explained in this atmospheric film. I loved the staging of a particular scene, Sophie takes a small glance through the keyhole as she watches girl "hand job" gesture while she brags about it with her friends. So many things would have gone wrong here but i appreciate Wells for drawing a line and keeping things delicate throughout the runtime.
Coming to the performances, Paul Mescal is capable of transmitting tenacity and great fragility in the same shot as he stares into the abyss and the internal conflicts that lie dormant deep within him (the dance scene). He gives his best to hold the viewer in an atmosphere of melancholy and empathy. There are times when he does his best as a Father and especially the bare back shot of him sobbing is brilliant without excessive melodrama as the scene cuts to a letter he had written to Sophie.
Frankie Corio is magnificent in her first acting debut as a 11-year-old, it seems like this was the role she was destined to play, a tailored made character. She is not too matured, whimsical or cute with dramatic intensity but does strike a balance with emotions and inhabits the typical 11- year-old mentality with lot of curiosity (liked how director used the Hookah pot instead of dumb question to register innocence). She hangs out with Michael, they don't introduce in the first meeting, it happens the second time. For me this ranks in the list of my favourite Child performances along with Stanislaw Rózewicz's Birth Certificate (1961), Shinji Sômai's Moving (1993), Dorota Kedzierzawska's Crows (1994), Patricio Kaulen's A Long Journey (1967), Kjell Grede's Hugo and Josephine (1967), Amir Naderi's The Runner (1984), Mariana Rondón's Bad Hair (2013), Yared Zeleke's Lamb (2015), Achero Mañas's El Bola (2000), Tony Gatlif's Mondo (1995), Nabil Ayouch's Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (2000), Héctor Babenco's Pixote (1980), Viktoras Starosas I Love the Headmistress (1978), Xhanfise Keko's Tomka and His Friends (1977), Maciej Dejczer's 300 Miles to Heaven (1989), Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher (1999), Byambasuren Davaa's The Cave of the Yellow Dog (2005), David Zellner's Kid-Thing (2012), Terence Davies's The Long Day Closes (1992), Samira Makhmalbaf's The Apple (1998), So Yong Kim's Treeless Mountain (2008), Céline Sciamma's Tomboy (2011), Andrés Wood's Machuca (2004), Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl (2001), Jacques Doillon's Ponette (1996), Akihiko Shiota Canary (2004), Manoel de Oliveira's Aniki-Bóbó (1942), Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return (2003), Ken Loach's Kes (1969), Shane Meadows's This Is England (2006), Karel Kachyna's The High Wall (1964), Vittorio De Sica's The Children Are Watching Us (1944), Wojciech Marczewski's Weiser (2001), Jan Sverák's Kolya (1996), Petar Lalovic's Some Birds Can't Fly (1997), Pavel Chukhray The Thief (1997), Soo-il Jeon's With a Girl of Black Soil (2007), Louis Malle's Zazie dans le Metro (1960), Claude Jutra's Mon oncle Antoine (1971), François Truffaut's 400 Blows (1959), Lasse Hallström's My Life as a Dog (1985), Cary Joji Fukunaga's Beasts of No Nation (2015), ), Yoon Ga-eun's The World Of Us (2016), Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander (1982), Lev Golub's Devochka ishchet otsa/Girl Seeks Father (1959), Yuan Zhang's Little Red Flowers (2006) Sean Baker's The Florida Project (2017), Edward Yang's Yi Yi (2000) and Carlos Saura's Cria Cuervos (1976).
Closing, i will not recommend this to everyone as some will find it boring. To those who love slow burn drama, be prepared to sail along to the Sunny side of Turkey as Wells paints a portrait of life, Mental illness and Fatherhood, to say the least, centered on a arthouse narrative. I guarantee that this film's sensitivity and making will strike you at heart with the symmetry of its two protagonists alone .
- samxxxul
- Aug 8, 2022
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Після сонця
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,658,790
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $60,752
- Oct 23, 2022
- Gross worldwide
- $8,459,155
- Runtime1 hour 42 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1