Under the Spotlight: Paul Mescal’s heartbreaking performance in ‘Aftersun’
Following his breakthrough on television with a lead role in the BBC drama Normal People, Paul Mescal moved to the silver screen, beginning with a supporting effort in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s The Lost Daughter and a follow-up in God’s Creatures. However, his star performance in Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun proved that Mescal was no flash in the pan but is well-deserving of his widespread critical admiration within the world of the narrative arts.
Aftersun is a heart-wrenching story from Wells, who makes her feature directorial debut with this film. The movie is a combination of coming-of-age and depression exploration. Mescal delivers a stunning performance, which is only matched by Frankie Coro, who remarkably shines in her very first acting role. Quite simply, every moment of Mescal in the 2022 film is nothing short of astounding, and it’s suitable that he was nominated for an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’, a phenomenal achievement considering how early into his career the Irish actor was at the time.
In Aftersun, Mescal plays Calum, a 30-year-old single father who takes his 11-year-old daughter Sophie on a week-long holiday to Turkey. Calum is in the throes of a severe bout of depression, and although he does his very best to hide his mental affliction from Sophie, the signs shine through to the point where he gets increasingly frustrated and blames himself when Sophie catches on and expresses depressive thoughts of her own.
Immediately, Mescal faces the task of having to play two characters at once: the father, who just wants to create good memories with his daughter and another, his shadow self of sorts, who does everything in his power to prevent his depression from bubbling to the surface. The Irish actor does a truly excellent job of depicting a man in such a troubled and tormented state.
There’s a deep kindness in Calum exhibited through Mescal, a patience with the world that he does not apply to himself. Mescal’s perfectly executed Edinburgh accent reinforces this tenderness, the softness that whispers through the vowels and pads the consonants of voices of the Scottish capital. The accent was not one that Mescal was familiar with initially, but he practised it to a complete degree, so much so that you’d be forgiven for thinking him a native Scot rather than an Irishman.
As a young man without children, one might expect Mescal to lack the fatherly instinct expected to play someone like Calum, but somehow, he found it deep within himself. During an interview with GQ, Mescal explained what drew him to the movie. He said: “I just loved the character. I felt a deep desire to play him. I know I’m not a dad or anything like that, but I just felt a kind of connection, a real desire to at least have a shot at putting my case forward.”
Thankfully, the case was put forward, and Mescal became the perfect man for the role. Both Calum and Sophie are characters that breathe reality, further stated through the “found footage” camcorder material that is edited throughout Aftersun’s runtime. In that sense, the viewer can almost feel Calum’s inner turmoil physically weighs him down, and it’s all a testament to Mescal’s ability to simply embody his characters.
There’s a deep nostalgia to Wells’ film that seems to serve as an examination of that so-peculiar emotion itself. The feeling of happiness and sadness combined and twisted in contrasting union – the sorrow that our memories will always remain memories and that we can never go back to them and the joy they might have happened at all. In a way, that’s largely how Mescal plays Calum, a constant flitting of emotion, a desperation to imbue Sophie with happiness and a desperation to keep her free from the depression that has clearly sewn its seeds so deep in his heart.
There is an almost unbelievable chemistry between Mescal and Corio, so strong that it’s easy to forget that they are not actually father and daughter, but had only spent around two weeks together before filming, further testament to the prowess Mescal has as an actor, not only in front of the camera when it’s rolling, but also during the crucial preparation period, one that so many of his contemporaries are likely to negate.
As Sophie makes what seems like her final memory of her father as he dances at the resort to David Bowie’s version of ‘Under Pressure’, we’re reminded of the fleeting nature of our lives and how quickly our loved ones can pass from our reach. Somewhere within Paul Mescal, there lies a resonance for this saddened father and the way one can never quite muster the courage to come to terms with our own sorrow, but it’s through his extraordinary performance that we better come to understand ourselves and one another – and surely that’s the finest and most crucial object of acting of them all.
