A dark horse in the Best Performance by an Actor In a Lead Role category at this year’s Oscars is Paul Mescal for his performance in the unassuming charmer, AFTERSUN.

Nothing very much seems to happen in this story of a holiday taken by a father and his daughter. But of course, heaps happens, the minutiae of moments building into lifelong memory.

Written and directed by Charlotte Wells, AFTERSUN chronicles eleven year old Sophie’s trip to Turkey with her dad, Callum. It is quickly established they have a good and close and loving relationship but there is lots going on below the surface too.

Callum is valiantly trying to mask his depression, dealing with the demons that torment him. These torments are never specifically identified but illustrated by nuance of direction and performance.

The film has the languid, lounging pace of a beach holiday and is all the better for it, aiding and abetting its meditative and contemplative mood.

Frankie Corio as Sophie is a spellbinder, a splendid performance representing the chrysalis between child innocence to adult awareness. Her performance is a match to Mescal’s and one wonders why she was not nominated alongside him.

The use of video footage is brilliantly interwoven into the visual style of the narrative as is the choice of pop music from decades ago. R.E.M.’s Losing My Religion a pertinent piece to be sure.

An antidote to the bluster of many a Hollywood blockbuster, AFTERSUN is a sublimely subtle film about subjective memory of a narrator that burns into the objective memory of the viewer.