Waves review: Heightened, emotional movie anchored by extraordinary performances

If you can, see this new releasemovie, Waves, at a cinema because it deserve to be seen, heard and experienced on a large screen.

Waves is a movie of two halves.

In tone, they couldn’t be more different – the first half is propulsive and feverish while the latter is tender and thoughtful – but together they form a film that is a heightened emotional experience rarely encountered.

Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults ( Krisha , It Comes At Night ) and starring Sterling K. Brown, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Taylor Russell and Lucas Hedges, Waves was a critical darling out of its premiere at Telluride last year, and for good reason.

This is a film that is visceral and breathtaking, and it’s a relief that it’s been released on big screens because Waves deserves to be seen and heard (and felt) in a cinema.

The story centres on a wealthy African American family in Miami. Son Tyler (Harrison Jr) is a star wrestler at his school and is in a passionate relationship with girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie).

Tyler’s father, Ronald (Brown), is a tough love parent, pushing his son to be the best. Ronald’s no compromises approach isn’t the most nurturing form of encouragement and the pressures weigh heavily on Tyler when a few events in his life spiral into a calamitous event.

Kelvin Harrison Jr and Sterling K. Brown as Tyler and Ronald

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That event is the midway point for Waves, after which the perspective of the film changes to Tyler’s younger sister Emily. Emily is shier than her brother, and naturally self-isolates socially after what happens.

But when classmate Luke (Hedges) invites her out for an after-school meal, it’s the push she needed to re-join the world and allow herself to live in it.

While that first half, the Tyler half, is the stylistically flashier segment which moves at a breakneck pace with a constant sense of jeopardy, it’s the second half where Waves is really entrancing. It’s in that second half where the film delves into the bond of family and how they can love and fail you, often at the same time.

Taylor Russell steals the movie as Emily

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Waves adeptly crafts a story about disappointment and loss and the path to forgiveness – not just forgiving the person who has turned your world around, but forgiving yourself. Waves is about finding grace.

All the performances here are extraordinary, but especially the young actors Harrison Jr (who has had a phenomenal run between this, Luce and the forthcoming The High Note) and relative newcomer Canadian actor Russell who steals the movie as the quiet, sensitive and unimposing Emily.

Brown, as always, is stellar as Ronald, especially in the change precipitated by that event, and his scenes with Renee Elise Goldsbery (The Good Wife, Hamilton) are charged. But it’s one particular scene, over fishing, that really gets to the heart of that character, a scene that won’t fail to move you. It’s a character growth that Brown handles with as much skill as Shults handles the tonal shift throughout the film.

The cinematography and mood of Waves is electrifying

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Waves is a truly evocative movie and that’s thanks to Shults’ direction and the phenomenal camerawork and light design of cinematographer Drew Daniels, which is immediately striking. Sometimes there are saturated neon colours swirling around you (a la HBO series Euphoria).

One of the first scenes of the film is a 360-degree spin within Tyler’s car, the giddiness of youth set to the vibrant, soul-reaching beats of Tame Impala’s “Be Above It”. It plunges you into Tyler’s point-of-view.

The camera then moves with him, settling into the fast rhythms of his day and the audience is often dropped into the middle of a scene already in progress, which lends a naturalism to a movie that is often hyper-stylised.

There are scenes of young, sun-kissed bodies bathing in the Florida sun, with the verve of a Coke ad, an exhilarating celebration of carefree youth, while the soundtrack pulses with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Kid Cudi, Amy Winehouse and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score.

All that – the music, the photography, the performances – works to create a film that makes you feel as one with its rhythm, while conjuring a magical, cinematic experience that arouse emotions from euphoria to despair.

Rating: 4/5

Waves is in cinemas from today

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