Review of Waves (2019) by Greatmartin — 06 Dec 2019

Trey Edward Shults, director and screenwriter of "Waves", along with his cameraman Drew Daniels, has never met a color or a scene he doesn't love repeating more than once. If someone uses the 'f' word let's have a few people say it at least 20 times just as filming inside a car with a 360 degree turn of the camera is effective, and looks good, let's film it 3 different times. Oh and let's use every color of the rainbow flashing in all sorts of shapes over and over and over plus 2 more times. Should a scene have a guy throwing up let's do it again with the same guy and then another with a different guy.

The film is cut into 2 parts with the first concentrating on Tyler, played by Kelvin Harrison, Jr., and the second on Emily, played by Taylor Russell, his younger sister. We meet their parents Ronald, played by Sterling K. Brown and Catherine, played by Renee Elise Goldsberry, who married Ronald and brought up the two kids as their mother had died when they were quite young.

The first half is filled with violence and is basically a cliche all around. The script holds no surprises except, maybe, for whirling , flashing and never stop moving camera shot.

The second is sweeter, quieter as Emily meets and gets to know Luke, played by Lucas Hedges, sharing a young love as only teenagers can. There is a completely unnecessary scene, and person, involving the two plus a third character who when you hear about them you know a hospital scene is ahead. It could have been cut and having a movie run 2 hours instead of 2 hours and 15 minutes!

The acting by all, including Alexa Demie playing Alexis, Tyler's girlfriend, is above board handling scenes you have seen in many pictures before as if it was the first time it was shown on screen but, sadly, the screenwriter offers nothing new and only approaches each segment with flashing, fading, glowing bright lights.