Waves (2019)

Waves is one of the more difficult films I've seen in a while because it never quite lets you feel comfortable. Writer/director Shults starts his ambitious story by throwing us off balance right away. His camera spins and he flirts with the sort of film tropes which make an audience think something bad is going to happen, an accident, something out of left field. We are immediately made to feel like things are not safe.

Waves is the sort of film whose story shouldn't be explained, you just have to follow it. It doesn't necessarily go where we think it is going to go. The story doesn't have a predestine feel. There are many moments where it feels it could go in a number of directions. So much of the pleasure comes from not knowing, not having it go just where you expect.

Waves explores the fall out when someone you love does something horrible and how you wrestle with that. Most of our narratives are about good guys and bad guys. Waves transcends that by making us care about all involved and the way that ripples outward to those around them.

Shults has made a gorgeous film of beautiful light and melancholy pain. His casting of the incredibly talented Taylor Russell and Kelvin Harrison Jr. allows him to just give them a platform to live into their characters and imbue them with rich, complex layers of emotion. But he doesn't stop there; he frames them in beautiful visuals which add to that richness in a way that explodes off the scene.

Waves' story is difficult but powerful and one of the most beautiful films of the year. It makes me excited for whatever Shults, Russell, and Harrison will each do next.

Waves
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr. Taylor Russell, Lucas Hedges, Alexa Demie, Renee Elise Goldsberry, Sterling K Brown
Writer/Director: Trey Edwards Shutls