Waves
WAVES (Kelvin Harrison Jr., Taylor Russell) - A24
Trey Edward Shults’s Waves does not know what kind of film it wants to be; in fact, it tries to be two movies in one but definitively fails. Waves follows a suburban black family living in Florida. Sterling K. Brown plays Ronald, the authoritarian patriarch of the Williams family who constantly pushes his children to be the best versions of themselves. With his son Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), Ronald pushes so hard that he ends up pushing him away. Throughout the first half of the film, Ty struggles with an injury that threatens his high school wrestling season and also is having problems with his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie). He feels he cannot tell his family about his experiences and this failure to communicate leads to tragedy. The film shifts to his sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), becoming the protagonist as she deals with her grief and allows Brown’s character to have at least some chance at redemption with his children.
Waves does have certain aspects that make it somewhat redeeming: Sterling K. Brown’s performance is arguably one of the best of the film and seems to be the only factor making it even slightly cohesive. Taylor Russell’s Emily is underutilized for the first part of Waves but when she becomes the protagonist, she delivers an incredible performance as her character deals with grief in her own way; Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s role brings much of the tension and drama throughout Waves. Unfortunately, Shults’s poor script muddles the actors’ performances. The tonal shift in the middle of the film is so abrasive and jarring it causes the film to crumble. This change is meant to give the audience a chance to cope with what happened through Emily but leaves viewers confused as to why there is a sudden change in protagonists. Other technical parts of the film meant to add to its look also fail to work, such as the changing aspect ratios and neon lighting. Shults seems to prioritize aesthetic instead of considering how black characters should be written.
Shults has said that Waves is semi-autobiographical, there was no consideration of race when he was writing these characters. It was only when Kelvin Harrison Jr. expressed interest in playing Tyler that the Williams family became black but Shults neglects to inject any sensitivities or nuance that should be included when writing characters of colour. There are plenty of points in the film that reinforce black stereotypes through Tyler’s actions and inflicts needless violence, both verbally and physically, often for no reason or simply for the sake of drama. It is so blatantly arrogant of Shults to make this film without considering the black experience. The little effort he does put into showing how Tyler deals with being a black teenager are so gross and basic. At one point someone calls Tyler the n-word, for absolutely no reason. He tries to get out of dealing with black grief with the insertion of Lucas Hedges’s character as a love interest for Emily. Shults’s white naivety does not absolve him of the wrongs he inflicted on Waves, since he insisted on making this story about himself. A white man should not have made this film, at least not centred around a black family. Taking away the cinematography, the editing and the music, Waves is insulting.
Waves is released 15th November 2019 in the U.S. and 17th January 2020 in the U.K.