Best Actor 2022: Paul Mescal in Aftersun

Paul Mescal received his first Oscar nomination for portraying Calum Paterson in Aftersun. 

Aftersun is a collection of memories of a woman Sophie as she recounts a holiday with her father when she was a young girl (Frankie Corio).

Paul Mescal defied most odds in his nomination, receiving few precursors, being an extremely young nominee for the category (only 26), being fifth among first-time nominees, and being mostly unknown to US audiences. His performance further defied the odds because lowkey doesn't even quite put it right in terms of his work against any of the other nominated performances or against the types of performances that are typically Oscar-nominated in general. Aftersun takes that one step beyond however because this isn't even a low-key performance that we become close to in the way say Steven Yeun was in Minari, the film purposefully often frames Mescal in a very particular, unusual way, akin, though thankfully not to this extreme, to the way Tom Courtenay was presented in 45 Years. The character of Calum is often viewed through alternative perspectives of the little girl looking at her dad in various sorts of slightly obscured images akin to imperfect memory. Mescal's work in turn offers a very different sort of Oscar-nominated turn where he is so often far off the frame in his own film, and also presents him with quite a challenge as a performer, as he must be present while being so often obscured. 

Paul Mescal might seem in itself strange casting as the dad of a girl who is over ten, however, while the character is slightly older than Mescal, part of the alluded idea is a man who was probably far too young to be a father needing to take up such a role. Mescal's performance early on seems almost perfunctory, which isn't a criticism by the way, but rather the initial presentation of Calum as the dad as he joins his daughter on their vacation. The initial moment of seeing their tour guide stumble a bit through her presentation, which Calum impersonates in a lighthearted bit which Mescal delivers well as very functionally as his dad trying to urge his daughter along towards the theoretical perspective of their time together. The time goes off slightly wrong initially as their hotel is poorly staffed and the two end up with the wrong room. Mescal again is strictly naturalistic and I think in a way that does require a bit more that needs to be said. In a very vapid exploration of the film you may just see even the moment of Calum lounging around the room after he puts his daughter to bed, however, the key is what he explores even with so little at his disposal in terms of what he is to convey. His manner and his physical performance, his picking at his cast, and even his manner of smoking, there is a sense of more than a bit of frustration. Frustration that Mescal doesn't always directly portray, particularly early on, but to say that Calum is perfectly comfortable is bluntly false. 

Mescal's performance is most often between the lines. There is the basic line of the dad trying to be the dad, which Mescal delivers in a very subtle way in terms of not quite being what he says he is. We do just see him and Sophie in different circumstances, some playful such as literally playing around the pool, playing billard, or slightly educational as he struggles to get her to take a self-defense practice seriously. The chemistry between himself and Corio here is key in that there is warmth, but it is also imperfect. Mescal's manner is rather remarkable because he manages to be just not quite right in his performance. He shows a man very much putting on the role of the father, and while it isn't false, it isn't quite true either. There is just the slightest shade in the most basic scenes that Calum isn't fully comfortable being the dad, even as he's trying to be the dad. Mescal doesn't play him as a failure in this, but he also doesn't present him as a success. He rather grants an almost subconscious degree of weakness within the man's fathering. There is nothing that causes one to say "he's a bad dad" or "there's something wrong", however, there is something missing to it all that Mescal so naturally delivers in his performance in the most minute way possible. 

Mescal's moments between the lines let out just a little more to what there is in terms of what is going on with Calum below the immediate surface of trying to be a dad. In the earliest scenes these are flashes, yet rather brilliantly performed because they are potent in a moment even if that isn't the focus. That is again we see Calum very much trying to do his best with Sophie, however in for example a moment of waiting to go snorkeling, there is a moment of tremendous anxiety that flashes across Calum's face. There is something more terrible going on, and we see him essentially trying to hide from Sophie as the two are together. Another moment a bit later on reveals a bit more as Sophie asks Calum what he wished he could've been when he grew up. Although all Calum says is to put the camera away, Mescal's delivery is hiding so much personal anguish in those words. His face fitted with just the slight annoyance of a dad no longer playing around. Mescal has so much more though just deeper than that, Mescal implying what is within the man who is trying to hide it, yet clearly, a man who in no way is experiencing what he would've wanted at this point in his life. There's so much pain within him just beyond that surface that Mescal is able to convey without conveying it almost, but hinting at just enough that is there. 

Although the film isn't traditionally hitting moments beat per beat, what we see in the two's chemistry is a particularly pointed decay of a relationship. The two again do have enough of the father-daughter connection. Mescal shows the father trying to bring the joy he wants to bring to his daughter, Corio portraying how she is enjoying much of it, however, so much of it has those hints of something less than that. They're not completely connected and each shows this slight effort that is just enough to indicate the imperfection of their relationship even as at the moment they are trying to present to each other a kind of ideal. One of the big breaks is in this when Sophie sings karaoke, after Calum refused to attempt to sing with her, where Sophie does not particularly sing well either. Mescal's delivery of Calum suggesting that she could get singing lessons is with the overtures of the supportive dad, a bit of a smile, and everything else. There isn't quite a conviction in the statement and the sense of the critique can be felt even as it is technically well-intentioned. Sophie instead rejects the notion and calls it on him given it isn't something he could afford for her. A fantastic moment for Corio as showing sort of the sudden fall of the facade the daughter had been putting on. Mescal's reaction again is very very small, but enough in showing the break in his eyes in sort of sensing that anything he might be putting on isn't entirely working as much as he was trying. And from that, we see more of what is in the man, who is defined by frustration and sadness, that Mescal reveals basically as the truth of what's behind all of Calum. A deeply depressed man is likely considering suicide. That isn't bluntly said, however, Mescal powerfully embodies just this state in such a brilliantly performed fashion. As Mescal never exactly breaks beyond a certain barrier, he shows a man almost hiding all this in him most of the time, except for those relatively brief moments that have such an impact because they feel like such natural revelations. 

They feel like natural revelations though because Mescal's work manages to embody all of that within him, even as he is trying very hard to keep it all in. The moment we see Calum just weeping nearly controllably by himself, it doesn't feel like some sudden break, rather Mescal's painful depiction of that sorrow is just who the man is. Even when we see Calum returning to being the father, apologizing to Sophie for the earlier tension with a brighter more "dad" voice, and trying to talk to her as a dad again. Mescal's comforting words, as much as the attempt is more than decent, it isn't totally fake, but it also isn't entirely convincing either. Mescal is able to present a man suffering in broad daylight. It is always a lie when he's trying to engage with his daughter as the fun or caring dad, it isn't a lie, however, that being all there is to it, is a lie.  Take my choice in the screen capture, which is one of the few traditional close-ups that Mescal gets in the film, and it isn't one that he wastes. In just a single frame you can see the smile of a man that the smile is in genuine love with his daughter, but also in that smile, there are his eyes that are filled with a great deal of anguish that penetrates his living state at nearly all times. Nearly I write because the sort of emotional climax scene is a mix of the adult Sophie's remembrance and the past Sophie of watching Calum dance to "Under Pressure". Notable for Mescal because it is one scene where you can feel as though he is purely the dad for a few minutes in his goofy dad dance and just fully embracing the moment with his daughter and as this moment of joy, that eventually scars the adult Sophie because it is likely a final moment of joy between them that she can clearly remember. Paul Mescal delivers a heartbreaking portrait of really two faces of the man trying to be his best self for his daughter while suffering deeply inside from all his insecurities and personal desperation. It is a performance that largely exists in the margins, yet it is never lost in the margins, and I will this time credit the acting branch for once, for recognizing this modest yet oh so potent work.