Review of Waves (2019) by Debie — 26 Apr 2021

.Very difficult to review. Waves is essentially 2 movies in one. The film is about a suburban, middle-class black family and focuses mainly on the teens. The acting is undeniably great. The story is relevant and deals with how teens navigate in today's society, the pressures, and decisions they face, family dysfunction, poor choices, consequences, first love, forgiveness, and healing.

The first half follows the older son Tyler. He's outgoing, popular, athletic, and living the high life until some poor choices start making his picture-perfect life unravel. The second half focuses on his younger sister, shy, introverted, Emily, who is having to deal with the fallout of her brother's choices and basically her coming-of-age story.

(I preferred the second half.) The emotions are raw and real. The problem is the way it's filmed. First, the movie is way too long. Second, they try to be so "artsy" that it's annoying and pretentious.

There are tons of long scenes just driving in cars with music, showing scenery glide by or psychedelic colors, long moments focused on characters just sitting, contemplating, worrying. They show close-ups of people throwing up like 4 times.