Waves

 

The family at the center of Trey Edward Shults's Waves is frayed, but nearly undetectably at first. Exchanges between father (Sterling K. Brown) and his coltish son (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) feel prickly but maybe that's just the natural push-pull between two alphas. Nothing more. And maybe daughter Emily (Taylor Russell) is reserved because she's shy and uncertain and not because she's lost, overshadowed by her athlete-brother and hurt by the attention both father and mother (Renee Elise Goldsberry) pour on him. The family home is a pressure cooker of expectation and disappointment, and the stresses quickly begin to show both physically and psychologically until an event sends these four damaged people flying off in different directions, taking their pain with them. Waves is quiet but its intensity is nearly unbearable. All four leads deliver extraordinary performances but young Mr. Harrison's is far and away the most real and raw depiction of youthful confusion and agony I have seen in quite a while. He is truly outstanding and on par with generational peers Timothee Chalamet and Lucas Hedges, who also appears in Waves as daughter Emily's love interest and rescuer. Waves is devastating and exhausting but richly detailed, knowing and human.