In South Florida, a Family Goes on an Odyssey of Grief and Healing

From left: Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Taylor Russell,
Sterling K. Brown, and Renée Elise Goldsberry in "Waves"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Trey Edward Shults’ new drama, “Waves,” opens with Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) and his girlfriend, Alexis Lopez (Alexa Demie), as they enjoy a car ride through the Floridian sunshine.  Their lives seem fun, carefree, and full of promise. However, it isn’t long before their lives change forever, and Shults brings the story to life with strong performances and a hard-hitting emotional backdrop.

Tyler Williams is a high-school senior with a loving girlfriend and a supportive family, which includes his younger sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), his father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), and his stepmother, Catherine (Renée Elise Goldsberry).  When a tragic event befalls their community, they must try to pick up the pieces of their lives and learn to carry on.

Kelvin Harrison, Jr., brings considerable power to his role of a young man who has to manage his life as it takes several difficult turns.  The bursts of drama that Harrison gives his performance as Tyler faces one challenge after another invests us in his life because of him seeming like he has everything going for him, but showing that this notion couldn’t be farther from what’s going on.  He’s able to show us that there’s so much going on in his head, just by his facial expressions, which convey frustration, confusion, and sadness in equal degree, and there isn’t a moment when you’re not worrying about him.  Between Harrison’s performance here and in this summer’s “Luce,” it’s clear that he has a talent for portraying complex characters, and to display such capability in this stage of his career as it begins to take off in significant fashion pretty much guarantees that we’ll see more work like this from him in the future.   

Taylor Russell provides a sincere and warm performance as Tyler’s sister, someone who’s caring, introverted, and is carrying a lot on her shoulders, but is also someone who has an inner strength that we can see is trying to emerge.  While her character is sort of in the background at first, her slow entrance to the forefront hints at someone who has so much to offer, both in terms of the character and the actress herself.  One of Russell’s finest scenes comes within the first hour of the film, where she comforts Tyler after he suffers a breakdown.  At this point, we’re pretty overwhelmed by what Tyler as experienced, and Russell’s compassionate performance helps us feel the reassurance that her character provides for her brother. 

Sterling K. Brown shows a father who’s strict in his teachings, but also displays a calmness and understanding of a parent in whom his children can confide.  He presents his character as someone who knows the ways of the world and will do what he can to prepare his children in how to navigate its hardships, making sure that they stay on the right path and do the best that they can in whatever they do.  There’s a lot of love in Brown’s performance, and the way in which he interacts with Harrison and Russell helps create some of the most poignant scenes in the film and shows how much his character cares about his children’s well-being.

The rest of the cast has some other terrific performances, such as Goldsberry, whose character finds it harder and harder to connect with her husband after a distressing event; Lucas Hedges as Emily’s kindhearted boyfriend; and Demie, whose character must face a challenging decision that could impact both her future and Tyler’s.  There’s a genuineness to the six aforementioned characters, and their ability to convey the emotions of the situations within the film allows us to experience the heaviness of the situations through which they must traverse.

Although Shults’ screenplay is another one of those movies whose plot uses a rather straightforward day-in-the-life approach to the story, the length of Shults’ narrative allows us to spend plenty of time with the characters as they have extended conversations and try to work out their issues.  And, after a major turning point about halfway through the movie, we have a second half that’s distinctive from the first, in terms of which character the narrative focuses on, and this helps elevate the film above its familiar structure.

Shults doesn’t waste any time when it comes to bringing us into Tyler’s problems, emphasizing the quick shift that a life can take when you’re having fun in one moment, and then are facing troubles in the next, such as having the movie open with him enjoying a drive with his girlfriend, only for his life to go downhill after that.  Although the movie introduces us to Tyler’s demons quickly, it doesn’t feel as though Shults’ story is speeding us into this character’s troubles, but instead has the story begin at a point where he’s already experiencing these issues, and leaves us to wonder for how long he’s been going through his problems and if he will overcome them.

Drew Daniels, who provided the cinematography for Shults’ two other films, the family drama “Krisha” and the horror film “It Comes at Night,” provides a lot of vibrant colors that immerse you in the film’s eclectic environment, showing South Florida in an almost otherworldly light.  He also uses some notable camera maneuvers to capture the youthful energy of the characters, such as an instance where two characters will be in the front seat of a car as the camera spins around and shows the fun of driving with your friends, having the world ahead of you, and thinking that there isn’t anything that could go wrong.

As a director, Shults has a talent for dealing with narratives that focus on families in a crisis.  In “Krisha,” he tells a story of a woman returning to her estranged family on Thanksgiving, and “It Comes at Night” has him showing a family in the middle of an apocalyptic epidemic.  And, for his latest film, he once again captures everything that his cast members are feeling as they go through challenges that threaten to tear their family apart.  Besides the palpable tension that Shults provides in tremendous amount, the use of a score from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, one that switches between searing and beautiful, and Drew Daniels’ cinematography helps Shults offer a moviegoing experience that’s much more visceral than I anticipated, particularly in a pivotal scene about halfway through the film where all of the movie’s best qualities converge with blunt-force effect.  In that scene, and throughout “Waves” as a whole, we see how quickly the tides of a person’s life can change.

Grade: A-