‘Waves’ review — One family faces the music

Waves follows an all-American family as a tragedy sends them into a tailspin

One-sentence review: Waves is an electrifying and music-filled family drama that is as emotional as it is thrilling to watch.

Details: ? Trey Edward Shultz // ⏳ 130 minutes // ? 2019

The cast: Taylor Russell, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Sterling K. Brown, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Lucas Hedges, Alexa Demie, Neal Huff

Considering the number of needle drops and montages set to rap and R&B songs in new drama Waves — including songs by Frank Ocean, Alabama Shakes, Animal Collective, and Radiohead — you could almost classify it as a musical. And when the movie imbues the fluidity and momentum of a musical, it really soars. Take the disorienting opening scene where we meet high school senior Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr. — who is Oscar-worthy as he was with Luce earlier this year) as he goes through his daily routine — school, wrestling practice, time with his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie). The camera whips and tracks through his life as we rapidly cut between scenes. It’s like the opening number of a broadway musical that’s meant to get you on its wavelength. It succeeds. 

That energy is kept up throughout the movie as we watch Tyler interact with his hard and demanding father Ronald (a terrific Sterling K. Brown), who pushes his son to be better in every aspect of his life, often to a toxic level. It’s not without reason. As Ronald says in one scene, as black men they have to be 10x better to get anywhere in life — and still it doesn’t seem to be enough. Without realizing it, though, the pressure he’s putting on Tyler is manifesting itself in dangerous ways. It’s something Ronald’s wife and Tyler’s stepmom Catherine (Renée Elise Goldsberry doing great work) is acutely aware of. Off in the periphery is the youngest of the family, Emily (Taylor Russell is a breakout). We’ll come back to her. 

The first half of the movie is spent with Tyler. We watch as the pressure to do better and be better gets to him. He begins taking prescription painkillers to ease the pain of an injured shoulder — his doctor tells him to stop physical activity, but Tyler ignores him. He begins to party and drink excessively. At one point, Emily finds him on the bathroom floor incoherent and crying. She comforts him in that moment. 

Then something happens. Something stunning. Something that you shouldn’t know about until you watch the movie. It changes our perspective of the film — literally and figuratively — and sends us off on a tailspin with no end in sight. However, there is an ending and Waves nails it.

Shultz, who has done great work in his career between psychological family drama Krisha and post-apocalyptic thriller It Comes at Night, is so assured of his style. With Waves, he takes it to the next level. There’s rarely a moment to rest, which makes it a nearly unbearable viewing experience in the best way. Each scene and shot feels so intentional — like they’re musical numbers. But really what makes this melodrama work is the assuredness of the narrative. 

Each character, including Emily’s love interest Luke (Lucas Hedges), has their baggage. You can see the things that shaped them in life. The wounds that made them who they are — whether it plays out in the movie or happened years before it’s set. What Waves presupposes is that we’re all broken people, but not unfixable. The first half of the movie is dedicated to the events and traumas in life that tear us down and make the cracks in our psyche larger. The second half is dedicated to how we can heal them. It’s the Kramer vs. Kramer or Ordinary People of our day. Along with Marriage Story, also released this year, it’s taking a look at our own psyche. 

Unlike any of those movies, Waves is extremely experimental in its form. It feels like Moonlight — another drama set in South Florida — in that it uses cinematic language to communicate human emotion. Shultz achieves feelings of fear, sadness, suspense, hope, heartbreak, and more without much dialogue. Sometimes it’s a look or touch between characters or a camera movement. The most inventive times it’s a piece of sound design where the movie plays with what we can and can’t hear — sound designer Johnnie Burn is deserving of an Oscar. It’s a movie that shows more than it tells. 

There is a lull midway through that prevents it from being a real masterpiece — trust me, it comes close in the first half. However, it pulls it together for an ending that feels so satisfying and healing. In addition to the themes of toxic masculinity, race, and gender, what makes Waves so modern is that it understands our societal moment. At one point a preacher says in his sermon that everyone today is focusing on what makes them hate other people. Waves is a plea for kindness and compassion. It may not be the answer to all our problem, but it’s a start.