Trey Edward Shults’ Waves is not so much a film as it is a cinematic anxiety disorder. It opens with the camera spinning like it’s on bath salts, then spends two hours slamming your head into a locker of generational trauma, teenage hormones, and emotional manipulation—all wrapped in enough Instagram filters to make even Terrence Malick roll his eyes and say, “Tone it down, kid.”
On paper, Waves wants to be an operatic family drama. What it actually is, however, is a sweaty fever dream of chaos, grief, and hormonal decision-making, delivered in two barely connected halves. It’s like someone stuffed Euphoria, American Beauty, and a high school wrestling documentary into a blender and hit purée until you started hearing synth music in your sleep.
Let’s break it down: the first half follows Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a high school senior and wrestling standout with a physically overbearing father (Sterling K. Brown) and a girlfriend named Alexis (Alexa Demie), who’s got more mood swings than a faulty ceiling fan. Tyler’s life is one long montage of workouts, car rides, and red flags. He’s got a shoulder injury he hides, an emotional tank that’s one angry text away from empty, and the kind of fatherly expectations that would make even Michael Jordan cry.
The opening hour of Waves is a nonstop sensory assault. The camera spins, races, and dives like it’s being chased by creditors. Colors blast you like a mood ring in heat. The music—oh God, the music—never shuts up. Every other scene is scored like an experimental Spotify playlist created by a film student trying to impress someone at a party. Frank Ocean, Kendrick, Radiohead—it’s less a soundtrack and more a musical hostage situation.
And sure, Kelvin Harrison Jr. is good. He’s intense, raw, and always on the verge of a breakdown. You can see the pressure building in his eyes like a dam about to burst. Unfortunately, Shults decides the best way to depict this slow collapse is by yelling at you with every cinematic tool available. The editing is manic. The aspect ratio changes for no real reason. The dialogue overlaps like everyone’s trying to win an argument at Thanksgiving. And the entire thing builds toward a violent tragedy so telegraphed it may as well have been delivered via certified mail.
Then, just when you think the film has exhausted its melodrama, it shifts gears. Completely. As in, we slam the brakes on Tyler’s story and jump tracks to follow his younger sister Emily (Taylor Russell), who until now has mostly stood in corners looking like a ghost waiting for a subplot.
In a “bold” artistic choice that will either enrage or bore you depending on your tolerance for art-house indulgence, Wavesbecomes an entirely different movie. It slows down. The color palette softens. The music switches from aggressive hip-hop to ambient soul. And instead of following explosive male rage, we get whispered adolescent longing. Lucas Hedges enters the chat as Emily’s boyfriend, bringing his trademark brand of sensitive Muppet energy, and they embark on a healing journey that mostly involves staring at each other while the camera contemplates the sunrise.
It’s supposed to be redemption. Emotional resolution. A contrast to the first half’s chaos.
Instead, it feels like two films on a Tinder date trying to pretend they’re compatible.
The problem with Waves isn’t that it’s ambitious. It’s that it mistakes ambition for impact. It throws everything at you—grief, abuse, forgiveness, love, death, reconciliation—but never bothers to earn those moments. It’s a film that wants to be a catharsis but forgets that catharsis requires connection, not just relentless trauma and an A24 logo.
Shults clearly studied the greats. There are echoes of Malick in every sun-drenched frame. PTA in every long tracking shot. Barry Jenkins in every soft-spoken apology. But Waves doesn’t build on those influences—it mimics them like a kid wearing his dad’s jacket, hoping you won’t notice it doesn’t fit.
And let’s talk about the father. Sterling K. Brown is a great actor. But his character is a walking TED Talk on toxic masculinity, armed with protein shakes and motivational slogans. Every scene he’s in feels like he’s about to flip a tire or yell at someone for being a 9 out of 10. He’s supposed to be complicated, but the script paints him with all the nuance of a CrossFit Instagram caption.
There’s also a quiet stepmother character (Renée Elise Goldsberry) who mostly stands around looking concerned, which is probably the most relatable character in the whole film because that’s exactly how I felt watching it—worried, passive, and unsure why I was still sitting there.
Technically, sure, the film is gorgeous. It’s been color-graded within an inch of its life. The camera never stops moving, the lighting is moody and intentional, and the sound design is… constant. But beauty without discipline is just cinematic chaos. You can’t sustain an emotional arc by bludgeoning your audience with visual metaphors and needle drops like you’re afraid they’ll forget they’re watching a movie.
And the title—Waves—symbolizes emotion, rising and crashing, the tide of trauma, whatever. It’s the kind of vague poetic nonsense that sounds deep until you realize it has nothing to do with the actual plot. It’s a metaphor in search of a narrative.
Final Verdict? Waves is like watching someone scream their feelings into a lava lamp. It’s earnest, chaotic, and exhausting. It wants to move you. It wants to break you down and build you back up. But all it really does is shake the camera at you until you’re dizzy and slightly annoyed.
Watch it if you enjoy beautiful cinematography wrapped around emotional punishment, or if you’ve ever wanted to know what it feels like to be trapped inside a Spotify ad about trauma. Otherwise? Skip the waves and just go sit by a real ocean. You’ll find more peace—and fewer lens flares.
