RIDE THE CREST OF
IGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD high school student Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr) is a star athlete on the wrestling team thanks to relentless training and sparring with his domineering father,
Ronald (Sterling K Brown).
“We are not afforded the luxury of being average,” the patriarch sternly reminds his boy.
“Gotta be 10 times better just to get anywhere.”
Those dreams of excellence are threatened by a level five
SLAP tear to Tyler’s shoulder, which requires surgery to avoid permanent, irreversible damage.
Instead, the teenager defies his doctor’s grim prognosis and secretly pops his father’s prescription painkillers.
He pushes through the discomfort to maintain his golden boy status in the eyes of stepmother Catherine (Renee Elise Goldberry), sister Emily (Taylor Russell) and girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie).
Events spiral out of control when Alexis makes a life-changing discovery.
In the second half of the film the lens moves to Emily, who falls for an awkward fellow student, played by Lucas Hedges.
Waves is a beautifully nuanced drama of two halves. It works best in its opening salvo, anchored by a mesmerising performance from Harrison Jr.
Working closely with cinematographer Drew Daniels, writer-director Trey Edward Shults conjures a chaotic collage of vibrant images set to a hip soundtrack populated by Animal Collective, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Radiohead and Kanye West.
If it’s possible for a film to swagger then Waves does just that in a bruising, nihilistic first hour that can barely contain the youthful energy of the cast with nervous handheld camerawork that spins a dizzying 360 degrees in confined spaces.
The second act – a contemplative quest for healing – over-extends by 15 minutes but the calm after the storm allows us to draw breath and recover alongside gut-punched characters.