'There was not a dry eye in the house'
Think about the holidays you took when you were on the edge of being a teenager – do they stand out as somehow fresher, more vivid in your memory than the other ones? It’s a thought that came to mind watching, Scottish director Charlotte Wells’ miraculous first feature, about a formative trip to Turkey taken by an 11-year-old girl called Sophie in the late 90s with her depressed father, Calum .
At the Cannes world premiere on Saturday, Wells shyly introduced her film as putting “all my past and present, my hopes, fears and ambitions on a 50ft screen”. No biggie, then, and Sophie is clearly intended as an avatar of sorts for the director, a fact that’s underlined by the story’s time-hopping structure.
Sophie is also learning more about herself, of course, and the film has fun following her adventures with older kids from the resort, whom she studies for clues about impending teenhood as if they were secret signals from another universe. Likewise, anyone who took an all-inclusive holiday on the Med in the 90s will feel a rush of recognition at the many period-specific detailsnails, from the macarena-dancing dads to the clueless tour reps and paper-skinned karaoke stalwarts.
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