Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Wells)

It’s a squishy film, because there are dreams and visions, unexplained (inexplicable?) actions and motivations – and that’s probably the point, that memory is imperfect or that her dad is unknowable. 95% young Sophie on a lazy beach vacation with divorced/troubled dad Paul Mescal (Normal People) and 5% older Sophie (Celia Rowlson-Hall) in her apartment.

RW Knight: “No answers, because life isn’t solvable like that; things just happen, meaning accrues … What’s important is feeling adrift, a prisoner of time collapsing.”

Preston: “One wonders what the film is building up to – violence? disappointment? just cringe in general? – but its trump card is that the girl is so accepting, or not exactly accepting but too caught up in surveying the world around her … to engage in the usual third-act histrionics; all she really wants is a dad, which he’s able to supply intermittently, a low-stakes reserve that’s very touching.”