Waves

“Waves pushes the envelope and shows us what a nuanced coming-of-age story for Black characters can look like.”

Title: Waves (2019)
Director: Trey Edward Shults 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writer: Trey Edward Shults 👨🏼🇺🇸

Reviewed by Kosoko 👨🏾🇺🇸🌈

—MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 4.5/5

Bias warning—A24 is my favorite production house. Every movie of theirs I’ve either LOVED or at least liked, and Waves is no different.

Centering a Black upper-middle-class family in Florida, Waves follows a popular and driven high school wrestler named Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). On the outside, he has it all: His school’s adoration, loving parents, an amazing girlfriend, and a thoughtful sister. But when an old wrestling injury comes back to haunt him, his life devolves as he makes one mistake after another.

As a story, Waves possesses a gripping narrative. The pacing straps you into the getaway car and takes you for a ride, at least for the first two-thirds of the movie. Cinematographer Drew Daniels handles the camera with care, treating the viewer as a member of the family with close, intimate shots. The movie feels bright when it needs to be, haunting when you need to fear, and warm when you need to be comforted. Even the soundtrack tells a story, following its own journey.

But while Waves provides initial thrills, after a major plot point, the momentum jarringly downshifts to a snail’s pace. You eventually get used to the new vibe, which follows the quieter character of Tyler’s sister Emily Williams (Taylor Russell). In retrospect, the decision even makes sense since we’re no longer following the amped up joys and pressures of Tyler’s intense trajectory. But in the moment, the transition feels uneven.

Gender: 4/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Waves balances its cast between men and women, with the latter driving the film in key ways. For example, Tyler’s girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) serves as the catalyst who transforms the story’s theme from teenage recklessness to sobering consequences. Tyler’s step-mother, Catherine (Renée Elise Goldsberry), starts off as the family rock but experiences her own dilemmas when Tyler’s incarceration upends the lives of the Williamses.

Above all, her step-daughter Emily commands the second act of the film, peeling back layers as the movie expands. Audiences watch the high-schooler grow from a shy and nearly silent girl to someone who experiences first love, and who finally begins to heal from the film’s central tragedy.

But even with Emily’s robust story arc, the women in Waves rely on male narratives. At its worst, Alexis comes across simplistically as a popular girl who gets pregnant, then dies. Her death feels horrific not only because of the ominous fight between her and Tyler leading up to it, but the visual of her broken body feels compounded by a long history of film and media that fridges female characters solely to advance the plot.

Less eye-wincing but still revolving around a man, Catherine can’t “look at her husband because it reminds her of her step-son” and when Emily needs to get out of her shell, a (white) boy helps her do that. In no instance do women in Waves command their own stories, nor share any significant scenes beyond borrowing makeup—one of the few, if only instances where the film passes the Bechdel test.

Race: 4.5/5

Out of six key players—Emily, Alexis, Catherine, Tyler, his father Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), and Tyler’s wrestling mate Luke (Lucas Hedges)—only one character is white. That’s huge! Waves centers Black people without compromising our stories. We don’t fall into “ghetto” stereotypes. No one feels problematic, or “hood.” Rather, the Williamses experience universal problems, as told through domestic drama that could be given to characters of any ethnicity.

But here is what marks it down: The characters don’t ring fully true. They present like Black characters written by a white person. Indeed, writer-director Shults is white, which obviously doesn’t preclude great storytelling; however, it’s possible that Shults’ close mirroring of Waves to his own life contributes to the loss of complexity in translating the Black experience to the silver screen.

“Blackness” in Waves arrives through surface-level cues: rapping, or wearing a durag while working out. In some ways, it can even feel exploitative, mining the issues of teen pregnancy or youth incarceration without actually doing the work in exploring those threads further.

Sure, we get to see the typical Black conversations everyone hears. Ronald says to his son, “You have to be ten times as good to get as far as your white friends.” And I applaud Shults for collaborating with Harrison Jr. to give us that, for providing us with a character who, when faced with the police, doesn’t try to fight or shoot his way out. That’s important for young Black men to see. But ultimately, the film harbors little cultural specificity beyond the upper-middle-class economic tier that the Williamses inhabit.

You could certainly argue that that’s a good thing—that Waves reminds us how Black actors can, and should be cast in roles that normally default to white actors. But the fact remains that race is integral to the American story, especially in a cautionary tale follows a high-achieving Black teen in the South who still winds up in prison. Shults had the majority-Black cast, and he clearly has the artistic vision. He could have gone all the way, delivering his powerful message about the importance of mental health and communication in a way that encapsulated race, rather than patching it in through the feedback of actors on set.

Mediaversity Grade: B+ 4.33/5

Waves pushes the envelope and shows us what a nuanced coming-of-age story for Black characters can look like, without focusing on race. Though it needs to take half a step forward to feel revolutionary, Waves opens the door for more domestic dramas featuring Black families to come through.

Like Waves? Try these other titles starring young Black men.

Grade: BLiDecember 29, 2019