Like a lot of great dramas, you can see the backstory work done by the actors. And Brown has a couple scenes that reveal the depth of character he’s found here as well. She only has a few scenes before she’s asked to carry some heavy emotional weight, but she carries it gracefully and movingly. Few young actresses have been able to convey so much emotion with a worried look or warm embrace. For lack of a better word, Harrison gets the “flashy” performance, but he’s not the only stand-out here, in fact it’s Taylor Russell who feels like the revelation. This kind of dense, complex storytelling requires a lot of trust in performers and Shults’ cast repays that trust with some of the best ensemble work of the year. “Waves” is a patient, long film, but Shults pays off that patience with the final half-hour, which contains the kind of emotional moments that would feel manipulative and melodramatic in a lesser work but resonate here because of how much we know about these characters. It’s one of many filmmaking choices that impact how “Waves” gets under your skin, sometimes without you even knowing it, along with the color palette changes and the effective use of a tension-raising score by Atticus Ross & Trent Reznor. Not unlike a novel that switches protagonist after the first half, we realize that this has never been only Tyler’s story.Īs he did with “It Comes at Night,” Shults plays with aspect ratio, tightening the widescreen ratio on Tyler as the world starts to collapse on him, but this is no look-at-me-ma trick. Already in a devastated place emotionally, he fractures further, and “Waves” hurtles toward tragedy, before picking itself up and becoming another film altogether. And then he finds out Alexis is pregnant. He doesn’t even tell anyone, popping pain pills and slowly coming apart at the seams. A shoulder injury could derail his senior year and even college prospects, and Tyler does not have the support structure or skill set to deal with his life’s plan being entirely dismantled. He seems like a man who a future therapist will call abusive but who honestly believes he’s doing what it takes to make his son successful.Īnd then Tyler’s world collapses. Brown), but dad points out that young black men have to work ten times harder than their white counterparts.
Sure, he butts head with a stern father named Ronald ( Sterling K. He’s a successful athlete in a loving relationship. Shults captures Tyler’s life with a fluid camera, conveying the constant motion of youth and its boundless joy. Tyler’s sister is a sweet girl named Emily ( Taylor Russell) and he has a supportive stepmother named Catherine (Renee Elise Goldsberry) and a girlfriend named Alexis ( Alexa Demie). Shults’ camera, guided by his regular cinematographer Drew Daniels, glides through the life of a handsome, happy, successful Florida teen named Tyler ( Kelvin Harrison Jr.).
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