Review: Waves
This film encapsulates the true emotions that revolve around love, family, and death. The outcome gives you Waves (2019).
Like its title, the movie comes at you in waves; many highs and many lows, and never really gives you a chance to breathe. The strength of the movie is that it follows its theme in every aspect, and never gives you a chance to come back to the surface. This idea is solidified by the incredible sound design that gets quiet in moments of sadness or euphoria and loud in moments of panic or fear. The editing amplifies this by closing the aspect ratio, at its peak and opening it back up, as the family furthers themselves from the incident. On top of this, the performances are all fantastic, making the characters seem realistic and empathetic.
Despite its strengths, the film has too much going on, even if that is the point. The weakness is in the editing. The pacing in the entire film felt way too long, especially for a 135-minute runtime, however, if anything were to be removed, the movie wouldn’t be as impactful.
In conclusion, take a breath, the film is over, and trying to break this down was very confusing as I was trying to remember everything that happened, which was impossible.
More info & links:
- Director: Trey Edward Shults
- Cast: Taylor Russell, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Alexa Demie, Sterling K. Brown
- Waves on IMDB
- Waves Official Website
Zach Chabot
Film Reviewer
Zach is a film lover at heart and director. Don’t get mad if he dislikes your favourite film because it is personal, and he does want you to tell him about it on social media. @ZachChabotURL
