02. Her World On Her Terms: Personal Offerings in 'Aftersun' & 'Can't You See I'm Trying'

A love letter from Carley Lovito to 'Aftersun' (2022) by Charlotte Wells

Dear Aftersun, mon amour,

The films that hold me closest and inspire me most are those with loose ends and careful nudges - endings not wrapped in a bow or finalized with answers. Some of the best films complete where a new story begins, on the brink of discovery, or becoming.

Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun found me at a time where I asked myself whether the stories that feel the most personal can truly be universal, or if they aren’t, does it even matter? As I wrote my upcoming film, Can’t You See I’m Trying, I kept unraveling what wanted to be a cerebral, delicate, imperfect story. Moments that lacked dialogue were the most emotionally heightened and though our main character, Ella, struggles with an external conflict, her internal conflict is what more deeply drives the story. We experience her world on her terms in the way she lives, fears, discovers, and questions. Charlotte’s Work on Aftersun spoke directly to my desire to lean into Ella’s world, and let her discovery and curiosity guide our audience.

When I think about Charlotte, Frankie (who so brilliantly told Sophie’s story) and their ability to hold so much in what is seemingly so small, the bathroom scene specifically comes to mind. Sophie peers through the crack in a bathroom stall, noticing the way the older teen girls standing before the mirror wear their hair in ponytails, the way they talk, the way they laugh. This moment is so simple, but the way cinematographer Gregory Oke lingers, pulling focus on the girls in the mirror: their eyes, their lips or the way they brush by each other's skin suggests through Sophie’s point of view that she is considering something much deeper than a simple comparison of her appearance to theirs. As a woman who has had similar experience, I understood in this instant - Charlotte is a freaking magician. She is telling us that Sophie is questioning her sexuality. In the next scene, Sophie wears her hair in a ponytail. Something has shifted, in a quiet certainty.

I think an incredible alignment occurs in filmmaking when an artist makes an offering like this. They say “Here’s something that means a lot to me, that you may not see or understand, but I feel it, and it has to live here, because it is the heartbeat of this film.” I think in writing, when you lean into moments like that, you do everything you can to honor whoever you’re telling the story for, even if it’s some part of you or any self you’ve ever been. And dear Aftersun, you write with those moments, you lead with those moments, and you teach me that these things can be deeply considered, and delicately told, and that there is so much space for our stories. I hope that Ella can find and hold the magical space that Sophie has found, in her own world, in her own way.

With all of the love and gratitude in the world,

Carley Lovito

About Carley

Carley Lovito is a Writer, Director, Producer, and Actor as well as a recent alum of NYU’s Tisch School of Drama, recently making her debut as a filmmaker across major festivals worldwide and with the award winning poetic short film “Everything I Never Told You”. She has worked in cultivating new works with the New York Theater Barn and Playwrights Horizons. Carley’s work focuses on cultivating creative community and uplifting female voices while making space for representation in underpresented storylines that drive poetic, emotional, and pivotal female focused narratives.

Introducing Can’t You See I’m Trying

An Amour Films and Notes App Productions short by Carley Lovito, Can’t You See I’m Trying is a love story between a mother and daughter journeying towards self-acceptance while fighting for a sense of enoughness in each other’s eyes.

Amour Films is thrilled to be bringing this story to life with Carley and will commence shooting this fall.