Director Edward Trey Shults
WAVES B
USA (136 mi) 2019
d: Edward Trey Shults
An ambitious project that feels troubled right off the bat, as
a white director attempts to tell an extremely personalized suburban black
story in South Florida, with mixed results, especially when relying upon
pyrotechnic visual effects and loud, explosive music to set the mood, where the
aggressive stylistic flourishes feel audaciously overdone, like the narcotic
induced dream landscape where all moral boundaries have been crossed in Harmony
Korine’s Spring
Breakers (2012), growing awkwardly pretentious, relying upon stereotypes,
feeling utterly cliché’d, particularly the view of an angry, out of control
black teenager, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Tyler, where the feeling in the room is
that this is the wrong messenger for this film.
In fact, the initial story has racist implications when told from a
white director, turning the lead character into an O.J. Simpson figure in high
school, a testosterone driven athlete flying into a jealous rage, as if crazed
by madness, becoming the stereotypical angry black man as projected by whites,
where he becomes the personification of pure evil. His spoiled arrogance and sense of
entitlement is more reflective of white suburban mentality than black, where
the enormity of the house is mindboggling, something rarely seen in black
films. Even in the aftermath of this agitated
turmoil, a white character swoops in and falls in love with a young black girl,
another white idealization, where the first half is cringeworthy in its
problematic and embarrassingly shallow racial depiction, steeped in the exaggerated
melodrama of an afterschool special, almost deserving of a walk-out. However, due to the ambitious nature of the
film, it shifts into something else altogether for the second half, reminiscent
of Ned Benson’s 2014
Top Ten List #8 The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them, changing focus to
a different character, Tyler’s younger sister Emily who was a nonfactor until
then, becoming quieter, more somberly reflective, targeting her inner sanctum, where
the actress Taylor Russell is surprisingly good, adding length, altering the
emphasis of the story to a female perspective, allowing new interior life to
breathe and rediscover itself. Losing
the overeliance on overtly masculine, music video effects, the film calms down
and becomes more poetically effective.
Still, it’s a mysteriously strange film that is all over the map in
terms of a compelling emotional odyssey, using American landscapes to break
free and enlarge the spacious overall reach.
Tyler is a high school senior on the wrestling team, a
highly competitive sport that is driven by overly zealous coaches that push
them to the limits, as does his domineering father (Sterling K. Brown), who
instills obsessive habits, training him personally, where the male authority
figures teach him to become superhuman, that to become a champion he’ll need to
ignore the pain and all outside noise, focusing only upon winning. While most wrestlers are extremely
conscientious about what they eat or drink, maintaining strict weight
requirements, Tyler can be seen partying with rambunctious friends indulging in
alcohol and drugs, while also stealing pain pills from his father that he eats
like candy to cover for an undisclosed injury on his shoulder that turns out to
career ending, yet he stupidly refuses to listen, as if he’s invincible, while
hiding the truth from his parents, pretending he’s fine, until he permanently
injures himself in a match, which completely changes his identity, as being the
strongest guy is no longer who he is.
More importantly, his girlfriend Alexis (Alexa Demie) announces she’s
pregnant, where he goes through the motions of being sympathetic, taking her to
an abortion clinic, but she’s severely affected by the protesters outside and
changes her mind. The wheels fall apart
after that, as she wants to keep the baby, which drives him apoplectic, as he
can’t control her behavior. His rage is
so significant that she breaks up with him and cuts him off her phone, even
going to the school prom with another guy, which sends Tyler so out of control
that he drinks heavily, tears up his room in anger, steals his father’s car
keys, then throws him out of the way before heading out for the school prom where
he literally stalks Alexis, cornering her in a remote area, flying into an
angered rage before physically assaulting her, leaving her inert on the ground,
not moving. The sounds of a girl
screaming at what she sees sends him bolting out the door, leaving the scene of
the crime, frantically running away, but he’s arrested in short order, given a
life sentence where he’s eligible for parole in thirty years. As this is happening, his parent’s marriage
crumbles and falls apart, with the stepmother (Renée Elise Goldsberry) blaming
the father for excessively pushing him, not allowing him to fail, always having
to be perfect, leaving them both emotionally distraught, while Emily finds
herself cut off from her distant parents, without anyone to talk to at school, eating
lunch outside alone, keeping earphones in her ears, remaining aloof and
isolated, a forlorn figure of extreme alienation.
In the aftermath of tragedy and loss, the film turns on a
dime and unexpectedly follows Emily, which is a pleasant surprise, though due
to all the hatefully vile comments about her brother on social media she
deletes her account, which is the first step in taking her life back. The rest of the film is an odyssey of
self-discovery, which includes a lengthy road trip, but is largely an impressionistic
mosaic of music-fueled imagery that mirrors her inner growth. Initially the film was actually conceived as
a musical, actually writing the songs into the script, but that changed in
development, though more than 40 musical tracks are profoundly influential and
carry the emotional weight, in effect becoming the sound design of the
film. When an awkward initial meeting
takes place between Emily and a white student Luke (Lucas Hedges), he asks her
out to lunch, eventually spending more time with her, actually drawing her out
of her shell, viewed as a kind of rebirth, like a phoenix rising from the
ashes, as portrayed by SZA, Pretty Little Birds -
YouTube (4:05) or Frank Ocean, Frank Ocean - Seigfried -
YouTube (5:34), allowing a creeping romanticism to develop. Both come from broken families, as her
brother’s in prison and her mother died at an early age, while his alcoholic
father has been absent from his life, still holding plenty of resentment
against him. Emily’s personal insight
and maturity level is off the charts, so when he gets word his father is dying
in a hospital in Missouri, she proposes a road trip to visit him, which alters
the look of the film, suddenly juxtaposing images of an open road and big
skies, where they’re literally finding their freedom. Along the way she turns up the volume on one
of her favorite songs on the radio, Animal Collective - Bluish
(Official Video) - YouTube (5:14), which finds them sharing stories, taking
side excursions to creeks and swimming holes, falling madly in love, where they
are finding intimate moments that matter, suddenly revitalized, not so alone
anymore. The heartfelt moments in the
hospital are devastatingly real and emotionally exhausting, making up for lost
time in a matter of moments, until there are no more, which can be
devastating. This film is about internalizing
those losses, finding faith and forgiveness in your heart, while gathering new
strengths, new perspectives, and developing a renewed capacity for an all-embracing
love. Melancholic sorrows bring the film
to a spiritual close in the form of Thom Yorke from Radiohead, True Love Waits - Radiohead on Vimeo
(4:56), singing an incredibly sad song that’s hauntingly beautiful and emotionally
raw, having gone through its own transformations (sung with guitars or
synthesizers through the years before finally pared down to just a piano), yet
aptly reflective of the overall empathic journey of the film.
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