2019’s Waves, written
and directed by Trey Edward Shults.
Starring Kelvin Harrison Jr, Taylor Russell, Stirling K.
Brown, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Lucas Hedges, Alexa Demie, Clifton Collins Jr,
Vivi Pineda, Neal Huff, Bill Wise, Harmony Korine, and Krisha Fairchild.
What is it about?
Set in present day Southern Florida, the Williams family,
composed of family head, Ronald (Stirling K. Brown), step mother, Catherine (Renée
Elise Goldsberry), high school son, Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr), and high school
daughter, Emily (Taylor Russell) go about their lives. Tyler is an aspiring
wrestler, dating Alexis (Alexa Demie), and his stern but loving parents attempt
to raise him and his sister right. Things start to change, and tragedy strikes.
It is from the ashes of tragedy that the family has to pick up and learn how to
function as a unit.
Why is it worth seeing?
Never strictly a director of horror, Trey Edward Shults
excels at creating experiences that bristle with anxiety. From his domestic
tale of an individual relapsing through a traumatic family Thanksgiving in 2015’s
Krisha, or of foreboding trauma packed
into a vague apocalypse in 2017’s It
Comes At Night, Shults specializes in a special kind of energy that attaches
to a mind’s eye like velcro. Waves,
his third feature length film, has a fair amount of anxiety to it, but it also
brings an extra noun to the proceedings- vitality.
His subjects of attention, a middle class black family in
Florida, operate in the centre of the American zeitgeist, with its relentless
focus on winning at all costs and internalized (and even externalized) racism.
Brown’s father character gives off the impression of a match about to be
struck, as the head of a blended family where its difficult to say if his
dreams of accomplishing success are overmatched by the very real pressures he
faces. No cipher of perfection, he displays a desire to be a provider, a coach
and personal trainer, a role model, a support, a disciplinarian, and a good
husband. His struggles to keep his family together, after his son (a solid
Kelvin Harrison Jr), starts to come undone, are admirably difficult and open
ended. The story of the family sorting through the destruction that is caused,
especially from the point of view of delightful Taylor Russell’s daughter character, is as
raw as it is realistic. While Shults’ script features a story that is
(somewhat) familiar, with a unique structure, the most revelatory thing about
the movie is its depth of feeling.
No stranger to slow tracking zooms of the camera, Shults’ work here adds an exuberance, its handheld pans deliriously spinning around its tremendous actors, suggesting an almost drunken exuberance to mirror the joys of youthful life. Its occasional 360 degree coverage pairs well with the process of chaotic and unpredictable rhythms of trauma. The camera work, paired with a neon saturated colour palette by cinematographer Drew Daniels, combine to make something uniquely alive and thriving. The same goes for the soundtrack, an eclectic mix of moody and atmospheric cuts that are as diverse as they are authentic to their respective scenes and characters- combined with the usual throbbing score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
It’s exciting how a film so invested in living on the screen is also so prone to quiet moments of characters facing one another, their souls pouring out in moments of hatred, fear, worry, comfort, and love. Featuring actors at the top of their games, there’s a lot of ground covered with its flawed characters, from the excitement of teenagers embracing the energy of life, to saying goodbye to hated family members who are dying for good. It’s a lot. It reminded me of 1999’s Magnolia, not in structure, but in that sense of watching a confident film maker just go for it. It’s not the only comparison, as in the process of digging into a viscera of feelings, Waves wears a lot of influences on its sleeve: lighting borrowed from the Safdie brothers’ neon fests, a setting and dramatic sense of nuanced authenticity from Moonlight, abstract colour blots and micro family drama from Tree of Life (Shults worked under Terrence Malick for 3 of his movies so one would guess it comes naturally), and even an interesting dyad of perspectives reminiscent of Sicario.
All the moving parts may not all come together, for example, a character we have spent a great deal of time with is essentially thrown away, leaving us hanging, resulting in a film essentially disregarding a character the way America has done to so many minorities. It’s an effective demonstration of the effects consequences can have communities that suffer horrible crimes, but doesn’t influence the movie’s love for familial enmeshment- and likely weakens it. There is a replacement for that hole left behind (a sublime one), but it feels like both elements could have gone together for a more complete direction towards resolution. That said, does the film ever hum and buzz with life, an alleged coming out party for an auteur who cinephiles will recognize as having been here already.
No stranger to slow tracking zooms of the camera, Shults’ work here adds an exuberance, its handheld pans deliriously spinning around its tremendous actors, suggesting an almost drunken exuberance to mirror the joys of youthful life. Its occasional 360 degree coverage pairs well with the process of chaotic and unpredictable rhythms of trauma. The camera work, paired with a neon saturated colour palette by cinematographer Drew Daniels, combine to make something uniquely alive and thriving. The same goes for the soundtrack, an eclectic mix of moody and atmospheric cuts that are as diverse as they are authentic to their respective scenes and characters- combined with the usual throbbing score of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
It’s exciting how a film so invested in living on the screen is also so prone to quiet moments of characters facing one another, their souls pouring out in moments of hatred, fear, worry, comfort, and love. Featuring actors at the top of their games, there’s a lot of ground covered with its flawed characters, from the excitement of teenagers embracing the energy of life, to saying goodbye to hated family members who are dying for good. It’s a lot. It reminded me of 1999’s Magnolia, not in structure, but in that sense of watching a confident film maker just go for it. It’s not the only comparison, as in the process of digging into a viscera of feelings, Waves wears a lot of influences on its sleeve: lighting borrowed from the Safdie brothers’ neon fests, a setting and dramatic sense of nuanced authenticity from Moonlight, abstract colour blots and micro family drama from Tree of Life (Shults worked under Terrence Malick for 3 of his movies so one would guess it comes naturally), and even an interesting dyad of perspectives reminiscent of Sicario.
All the moving parts may not all come together, for example, a character we have spent a great deal of time with is essentially thrown away, leaving us hanging, resulting in a film essentially disregarding a character the way America has done to so many minorities. It’s an effective demonstration of the effects consequences can have communities that suffer horrible crimes, but doesn’t influence the movie’s love for familial enmeshment- and likely weakens it. There is a replacement for that hole left behind (a sublime one), but it feels like both elements could have gone together for a more complete direction towards resolution. That said, does the film ever hum and buzz with life, an alleged coming out party for an auteur who cinephiles will recognize as having been here already.
No comments:
Post a Comment