Mark Reviews Movies: WAVES

Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter

Review by Mark Dujsik | November 21, 2019

We're first invested in the story of Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a high school wrestler, as he endures physical pain and psychological stress in his attempt to keep his life together. That's the first half of writer/director Trey Edward Shults' Waves. The second half follows Tyler's younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell), who gets into her first serious romantic relationship as her family begins to fall apart.

In this way, Shults' film is generous, but its generosity doesn't end with diptych of a narrative—the two sides being the individual stories of the two siblings and the hinge between them being an unexpected tragedy that absolutely devastates everyone involved. Once that tragedy occurs, Shults expands his view in small but significant ways. It's not just the siblings who matter. We also see how it affects Tyler and Emily's parents and catch brief but substantial glimpses of another family, now left with nothing but pain and grief.

The clear idea behind this film is how acts and attitudes between two people can spread beyond that limited scope. The most important figure, then, might be Tyler and Emily's father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), a man who wants the best for his children but who has become blind to how his good intentions have become a burden to his kids.

It hits Tyler the hardest, because he's older and the man's son and the one who shows the more obvious and immediate promise between the two kids. It affects Emily, too, in ways that we don't fully understand until she becomes the focus of the story. There's a certain kind of pain that can come with being the sole focus of a parent's hopes and that parent's own unfulfilled dreams, but there's also pain in believing oneself to be the forgotten child—to live so much in a sibling's shadow that it's almost as if another child doesn't exist.

Thinking about the film in retrospect, we can see Shults establishing Emily's story, even as his screenplay becomes fully enveloped in Tyler's. She's there, to be sure, but always in the background—at the dinner table, at a party with some of her and Tyler's friends, across the gap of a shared bathroom that joins the siblings' respective bedrooms. We know she exists, but we know almost nothing about her. Isn't that how Emily must believe she exists within this family?

Tyler's story is the surely the flashier of the two, and Shults plays it as such. On the narrative side, the 18-year-old is a promising wrestler, preparing for the upcoming season. Ronald, who was also an athlete until a knee injury put an end to that, encourages him, exercising with his son and offering advice.

That's probably how the father sees it, but from Tyler's perspective, Ronald is pushing him—the exercises have started to hurt and the words of inspiration sound a lot like warnings to not disappoint him. Ronald notices that some of his prescription pain medication is missing, but he doesn't dig any deeper—probably because he doesn't want to know the answer.

The answer is that Tyler has a rather severe injury in the making, and any physical activity might trigger it. He keeps wrestling anyway, using the pills and alcohol to numb the pain, and while all of that is happening, Tyler's girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) informs him that her period is late and that she's starting to worry.

On a technical level, Shults employs a variety of techniques and tricks to put us in Tyler's state of mind. The camera spins on its axis, as if it can't keep up with even the most mundane of the teenager's daily routines. Music blares on the soundtrack as the stress of his injury, his father's words and attitude, his girlfriend's realization that the guy she's dating isn't as reliable as she may have thought, and his growing dependence on pills and booze overtake his life. Even the film's aspect ratio narrows, as if the entire world is closing in on the young man. Like that injury, it's only a matter of time before something within Tyler breaks.

Something horrible happens. To state it outright would be unfair, because it comes as a shock, yet it must be noted, if only because the rest of the story, which transfers over to Emily (in a series of edits that subtly adjust the entire tone of the film), is defined by the incident. Emily, who at least seemed happy in her few appearances in Tyler's story, is now isolated from friends and her parents, who only seem capable of arguing. Then, she meets Luke (Lucas Hedges), who knows what happened but doesn't care—at least as it pertains to Emily.

Everything about this story and Shults' approach slows and calms. If the first half is about pain, the second half, which simply follows the couple's relationship in all of its awkward but comfortable progression, is about grief, yes, but also forgiveness, redemption, and love. A road trip to visit Luke's estranged father (played by Neal Huff) puts all of that in perspective, even for Emily, who might need the visit as much as her boyfriend.

The characterizations here—especially Ronald, who comes to realize his own failings in regards to both of his children—are complex, but there's a certain, admirable simplicity to the fundamental juxtaposition of these two stories. Waves may play as a wide-reaching family drama, in which we watch as the dynamics of these characters evolve and nearly shatter, but the message here is as plain as that of parable—and all the more affecting because it's communicated with such compassion.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products