Waves a moving and powerful film

Waves explores a deep-seated fear: what if something should happen to our children that might place them beyond our help?

A scene from Waves.

Three years ago, It Comes At Night proved to be an above average thriller about a highly infectious plague that has killed most of the people on Earth. Joel Edgerton and Carmen Ejogo played a couple who, together with their son, have hidden themselves away in a house in the woods afraid to venture out in fear they might encounter people suffering from the virus. This, the film suggested, was what might occur if there was to be an unstoppable pandemic.

Fortunately, COVID-19 seems not to be as lethal as the one depicted in the film, but looking back on It Comes At Night it’s clear that its writer-director, Trey Edward Shults, was tapping into an existential concern in all of us. His new film, Waves, which is even better than its predecessor, explores another deep-seated fear: what if something should happen to our children that might place them beyond our help or control?

The film opens and closes with a depiction of youthful freedom: Emily Williams (Taylor Russell), an African-American teenager, is cycling down a tree-lined lane in the warm sunshine. She’s happy and at peace, but that’s about to change. Emily lives in Miami with her upwardly mobile, churchgoing father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown) and stepmother Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry); they share their beautiful suburban house together with Tyler (Kevin Harrison Jr, who played the son in the earlier film), Emily’s older brother, who is in his final year of high school. They are a prosperous and secure middle-class family.

The first half of Waves focuses attention on Tyler. His father expects great things of him, both academically and in his chosen sport of wrestling. The young man has a beautiful girlfriend, Alexis Lopez (Alexa Demie) — he calls her his “goddess” — plenty of friends, and is doing well at his studies. But he is harbouring a secret; he is suffering from a wrestling injury, and is in continual pain. He steals painkillers and ignores the advice of a doctor who tells him he requires urgent surgery. He doesn’t confide in his parents. He keeps wrestling until the pain becomes too great.

At this crucial moment in Tyler’s life, Alexis discovers that she’s pregnant. Again, concealing the truth from his parents, Tyler takes her to an abortion clinic — where they’re abused by pro-life activists who hurl the “N” word at them — but Alexis can’t go through with it. I won’t reveal what happens next, except to say that the lives of every member of the family are turned upside down.

The second half of the film concentrates on Emily. Unlike her brother, she has no friends and is unhappy at school — until she meets the geeky, shy Luke (Lucas Hedges). They start dating, though she, too, keeps the relationship a secret from her parents.

Waves is primarily a drama about two teenagers, boy and girl, brother and sister, and what happens to them over the period of a year or so. It could be seen as a cautionary tale directed at parents, especially fathers, who are so ambitious for their children that they push them too hard. All the performances are excellent and perfectly pitched between reality and melodrama. And visually the film follows the same pattern: very creatively photographed by Drew Daniels, it also succeeds in being both “real” and heightened; the camera is excitingly mobile (not in an annoying way) and the vivid colour-coding, especially during the crucial graduation party and its aftermath, are powerfully used. Overall, the standard of film craft is exceptional and complements the intensely felt emotions of the drama.

Important, too, is the use of music and songs, both contemporary numbers by Kanye West and others, but also the old standard What a Diff’rence a Day Makes, a song beloved by Catherine whose title will have an ominous resonance for all of the family before this moving and powerful film reaches its conclusion.