“WAVES”: Inching toward forgiveness

Kelvin Harrison Jr., Alexa Demie

Published December 5, 2019 by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene

My rating: B+ (Opens Dec. 6 at the Screenland Armour, Barrywoods and Town Center)

135 minutes | MPAA rating: R

“Waves” is about a suburban American family coming apart at the seams.  Featuring plot elements like teen pregnancy, substance abuse — even murder — it promises a melodramatic rollercoaster ride.

But writer/director Trey Edward Shults’ third feature (after the dysfunctional-family-reunion drama “Krisha” and the end-of-the-world-horror entry “It Comes at Night”) is more insightful than exploitative.  He’s aiming at something profound:  forgiveness.

The film’s first hour concentrates on Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a handsome and charismatic high school senior with the world ahead of him.  He hopes to parlay his wrestling skills into a college scholarship; he has a beautiful girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie); he’s a conscientious student and a talented pianist.

He lives in a nice home in Florida with his father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), his stepmother Catharine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and his younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell).

But small chinks are apparent in this happy facade.  Ronald, a homebuilder, practices tough love.  He insists on training with Tyler, injecting an element of unhealthy competition into the father/son dynamic. Ronald belongs to a generation of black men who see America as a racially charged environment, and so is always pushing his son: “We’re not afforded the luxury of being average.”

(For the young people depicted here, being black or white is a non-issue. They live in their own world of racial fluidity, leaving all the breast thumping to their elders.)

Tyler’s world comes crashing down when an MRI reveals a career-ending shoulder injury.  The doctor tells him to immediately stop physical activities and prepare for surgery; instead Tyler keeps this devastating diagnosis to himself, continues wrestling (until the pain won’t allow him to any more) and self medicates with liquor and pills stolen from his parents.

And for the perfect frosting on his very bad week, Alexis reports that she has missed her period. Tyler, panicked, pushes her to have an abortion. Result: an acrimonious breakup.

Then things get really ugly.

Left to right:    Renee Elise Goldsberry, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Taylor Russell, Sterling K. Brown

The second half of “Waves” concentrates on little sister Emily, a couple of years younger than Tyler and dealing with her family’s newfound notoriety and an awareness — via overheard conversations — that Ronald and Catharine’s marriage is teetering on the brink.

Emily’s self-imposed isolation  is mitigated by the arrival in her life of Luke (Lucas Hedges), a fellow student whose disarming social clumsiness and earnest good spirit slowly reintroduce her to the idea of joy.

“Waves” reaches an emotional climax when Emily urges the reluctant Luke to visit his dying father (Neal Huff), who abandoned his family years earlier. If he doesn’t, she says, he’ll always regret it.

“Waves” doesn’t look or feel like any other movie out there right now. Shults employs spectacularly fluid cinematography (there are several seemingly impossible shots in which the camera  floats around the interior of a car filled with partying teens), rhythmic editing and a spectacularly esoteric musical score (credited to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross) to attain effects ranging from giddiness to dreamy melancholy.

The acting is terrific. Harrison imbues young Tyler with an aura of tragedy beneath youthful arrogance and obliviousness; Russell is utterly captivating as Emily emerges from her shell.

Brown, who plays television’s most impossibly perfect father on “This Is Us,” is both maddening and, ultimately, deeply touching as the flawed Ronald, who loves his family but seems stunted by his own ideas of manliness.

“Waves” is almost unclassifiable; nevertheless, it delivers an emotional gut punch that aches — in a good way — for days after viewing.

At its best it achieves a sort of Malick-level eye-of-God transcendence. And that’s saying something.

| Robert W. Butler

Read the original review and more reviews at Butler’s Cinema Scene