Aftersun

Aftersun is like sitting in a quiet room and realizing how loud your depression has been all along. I was watching it, mid-sentence with myself about this shadow that creeps in—how it steals the joy of things, how it makes you question whether you ever felt it at all. And there it was, laid bare on the screen. The movie starts soft, almost like a whisper, but it doesn’t take long for its weight to pull you under. "Don’t you ever feel like... you’ve just done a whole amazing day and then you come home and feel tired and down and... it feels like your bones don’t work, they’re just tired, and everything is tired. Like you’re sinking." That line hit me harder than I was ready for. It didn’t feel like dialogue; it felt like someone had found the words I’d been fumbling for. That’s what depression does. It turns even the good days into a kind of quiet exhaustion, like your body can’t decide if it’s been nourished or depleted. What makes Aftersun brilliant, though, is that it doesn’t hold your hand or try to fix you. It sits with you in that sinking feeling, in the moments between Sophie and her father, and lets you just exist there. It’s a film about the things we remember and the things we can’t help but carry. Watching Calum, Sophie’s father, wrestle silently with the weight of his depression while Sophie looked on, unable to see the full picture, felt uncomfortably familiar. Depression is like that—an invisible weight that you think you’re hiding but can’t quite conceal. "And there's this feeling, once you leave where you're from, like, where you grew up, that, um, you don't totally belong there again." I think about that every time I try to look at my past through the fog of depression. The further you get from where you started, the harder it is to recognize yourself in the person you used to be. Sophie’s perspective, both as a child and as an adult looking back, captures that ache perfectly. It’s not just about physical distance; it’s about the emotional dissonance that depression amplifies. The film works like a memory you didn’t know you had, the kind that depression blurs at the edges but never quite erases. Its beauty is understated, but it lingers—like a song you hum without realizing. I saw pieces of myself in Sophie’s longing, in Calum’s tired smile, and in the way their silences screamed louder than words. It’s hard to explain what Aftersun leaves you with, but I know this: when the credits rolled, I felt seen and undone, like someone had whispered, “I know how hard it is,” and meant it. It’s not just a movie; it’s a mirror you might not be ready to look into but can’t turn away from. It reminded me that depression lives in the things left unsaid, in the gaps between memory and reality, and that even in its heaviest moments, love is still there—quiet but unwavering.