Sunshine: affect films?

I am 20, and I am a mess. I have just failed three exams (there goes my summer) and I have been rejected by every college I applied to study abroad at. I had known your 20s were supposed to be fast and loose. The last time you’ll never be responsible for anyone else. But my first dip into the 20s experience had been too fast, and too loose. I was free-falling. Everyone else seems to know who they’re supposed to be. They’re on a path with a clear destination. Not me, three months out of my teen years and I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m not even a work in progress, I’m just a vague idea. It’s Christmas eve and my Dad has picked a film for movie night, he tells me I’ll like it. The film starts with the quote “Julie disappointed herself. This used to be easy.” For 2 hours, I feel seen, I’m not the only one freefalling, and maybe I’ll be ok too.

What makes a movie good isn’t what it is, it’s who you are. Aftersun didn’t win Best Picture, neither did Goodfellas or The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier, 2021), but that doesn’t erase what I felt watching them. I love these films because of how I felt watching them. And I felt those things, because of who I was while I sat down to watch these films. We can read all the top ten lists we want, and we can curate the films around what is

“best”. But where’s the fun in that?

I’ve spent three years writing for the Trinity Film Review, watching films and telling people which ones they should see like it’s gospel. But the more I write, the more I realise there are no good films or bad films. Just the movies we love and the ones we don’t. The ones that made us cry, or laugh, or scream. The ones that we’ll never forget. And why can’t that be enough?