Life is crazy isn't it? No matter if we're rich or poor, we still go through some crazy events. Set in a version of South Florida where someone under the age of 21 can walk into any liquor store and buy whatever they want Waves takes an in depth look at how a family finds their way through the ups and downs of life.
Tyler Williams is the star of his high school wrestling team. A former top tier athlete his father Ronald pushes him to become better and better. Despite this, Tyler has a shoulder injury that could end his entire wrestling career. He gets through the pain by stealing his father's medication. Tyler is in love with Alexis and even meets her parents. When she tells him that she's pregnant he agrees to take her to get an abortion. After going into the clinic she decides she'd rather not. As Tyler drives her home they argue and she begins to hit him before leaving. Alexis informs Tyler through text that she's keeping the baby and she'll never see her again. Tyler heads to a party where Alexis has already found her rebound, who may have been around before she broke up with Tyler. He confronts Alexis and she attacks him again, he pushes her away, she falls and dies.
We switch to Emily's perspective where she quickly falls in love with one of Tyler's teammates named Luke. The two swim with the manatees and have wholesome fun. When Emily learns that Luke's abusive father is dying from cancer she agrees to take a road trip with him so they can reconcile their relationship. Shortly after Luke's father dies, they return home.
I think, there are parts where this is an extremely beautiful film to look at and even listen to. There's some emotional shots coupled with the perfect music choices. However, at times I reminded that not much of it is original. The lighting is all reminiscent of the film Moonlight. I understand you can't own a specific style of lighting, that's just impossible. However, I can tell the lighting style was chosen without care and possibly in attempt to look similar. Lighting Black people in blues and purples can be beautiful. It can also look terrible when done incorrectly. There are scenes where the faces are washed out and so dark it seems like the characters lack any non vocal emotions. That's not to say there aren't beautiful moments in this film, but so many of them are poorly ripped straight from a more recognizable film. The scenes that look the most beautiful are the unique scenes, not those duplicated for popularity.
I could tell this film wasn't written by a Black person, without even googling Trey Edward Shults. Do you know how I can tell? The dialogue used the words "nigga," and "nigger," excessively in weird moments that didn't necessarily fit. This was a movie about suburban Black people attempting to use AAVE in white surroundings with no understanding of AAVE. For those of you don't know AAVE is African-American Vernacular English, sometimes referred to as Ebonics. It isn't stand language, nor is it trying to fit the hot new lingo into every sentence. The dialogue is off putting in a lot of situations.
The entire dealings with race are a fucking failure to put it bluntly. One of the issues that bothers me most was the scene outside the abortion clinic when they're being harassed for seeking an abortion. A white woman repeatedly calls Tyler a "nigger," and he gets into a confrontation with her, but a Black security guard comes to her defense even as she continues to yell "nigger," and that makes this a fantasy film because Alexis criticizes Tyler for responding. What?
Then there's Tyler's whole trial. This is an upper middle class family that uses a public defense attorney that doesn't even try to fight the charges. People have painted this as being some beautiful representation of how racist the criminal justice system is. The criminal justice system is racist, but this is lazy. Even if they didn't have enough cash to outright to pay for a lawyer they could have sold Tyler's truck. They had two more expensive cars. I live in Indiana, we have trucks like that. Let's say, we go on the cheap end and that's a $40,000 truck, but I've seen $100,000 pickup trucks before too. Nobody thought to sell the truck for a lawyer? I grew up, potted meat poor, and I've seen people pawn items, sell vehicles and plenty of other things to afford a lawyer, but Tyler is just pleading guilty. The dealings with race in this film are annoying at best, and frustrating at worst. The film would have been just find without attempting to make some grand gesture about the status of America.
A lot has been said about this film and the portrayal of toxic masculinity in the Black community. As someone who dabbles in toxic masculinity and happens to be part of the Black community, I can only see an outsiders view. Don't get me wrong, it's toxic, but it isn't necessarily a Black version of toxic masculinity or even a good portrayal. The only toxic thing about Tyler or Ronald's is that Ronald is living vicariously through Tyler and placing an unrealistic standard of success on him. But, this is a "go forth and sew your seed, take this land that is rightfully yours," manifest destiny kind of toxic masculinity that white men often suffer from. Tyler is depicted as a character that only knows rage. Toxic masculinity doesn't stifle the development of other emotions, it hides them, and bottles them, but doesn't make them disappear and in this case they do. He's a one dimensional character, Kevin Harlan Jr played the role to an incredible level, but there's nothing there but a guy that drinks and gets angry. Ronald is even worse, he just passively accepts everything except Tyler yelling at Catherine.
What the film does do a good job of displaying is toxic femininity, even if it isn't necessarily on purpose. Please stick with me, I'm not going the incel route here. In the film Tyler kills Alexis, but in retrospect, it was self defense. Throughout the film we see Tyler disagree with Alexis on multiple occasions, each time he's met with a flurry of punches until she has her way. The one time Tyler reacts by pushing her away, she falls and dies, that's an unfortunate accident. We have to acknowledge that her constantly beating Tyler isn't okay, ever. Domestic violence isn't only a man hits woman type of incident. There's psychological abuse as well as physical and Alexis does a lot more than just hit Tyler. She purposely makes him jealous. Repeatedly tells him she wants an abortion, backs out of the abortion and taunts him with the idea that he'll never see the child and that she had cheated on him in the past. I know Tyler is a killer, but she's a villain too. Tyler shouldn't have gone to that party to confront her. The situation is similar to a person being bullied relentlessly and when they finally retaliate, that's when someone decides to look. Without knowing the plot beforehand I kept asking myself why he's with her, but men (and women abused by women) generally don't report domestic violence or leave their partners until it has escalated to guns, knives or other life threatening abuse because they aren't wanting to be seen as weak. They just have tough it out.
But Alexis isn't the only example. At one point in the film Tyler calls Catherine a "condescending bitch." The word bitch might not be necessary but throughout the film she is emotionally abusive towards not only Tyler but Ronald and Emily as well. It's clear throughout the film that she doesn't really like Tyler being around for some reason, they don't converse often and when they do it's always her telling him what he can't do. In the same scene where he calls her condescending, in reference to his mother she tells him "she's dead, I am your mother." That's not something that just rolls off the tongue and comes from nowhere. With Ronald she's constantly reminding him of his failed basketball career. How he's rich because she's a doctor, despite the fact that Ronald oversees all the day to day operations of her business while also running his own contracting business. When Ronald believes he's missing pain pills (which he was) she dismisses it as he took too man or just lost count. She's obsessed with trying to own Tyler and keep Ronald beneath her, but what she does to Emily is worse. She completely ignores Emily's existence, and I don't recall a single one on one conversation between them. When Tyler goes to jail she blames Ronald for putting too much pressure on him and he points out that she's eager to replace their mother, but doesn't speak to the kids. She doesn't speak Emily after that despite sharing a home with her still. At the end of the film she goes to visit Tyler in jail, likely to gloat.
Emily is probably the only main character in this film that doesn't have some kind of terrible trait. Ronald does place too much pressure on Tyler. Tyler only has one emotion that nobody ever taught him to deal with. Alexis is violent and mentally abusive. Catherine is mentally abusive and excessively condescending. Unfortunately, even with the second half of the film being about Emily it focuses more on her supporting her new boyfriend. We still don't know anything about Emily other than the fact that she's caring.
You can check out some of my short stories at 12 AM Fiction or if you like vampires follow my web serial Exsanguinate and of course hear me on the Powerbomb Jutsu podcast if you enjoy pro wrestling.
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