{"id":8059,"date":"2019-11-22T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=8059"},"modified":"2019-11-22T08:00:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-22T13:00:21","slug":"review-waves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=8059","title":{"rendered":"Review: WAVES"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dissecting the family unit…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Bursting onto the film scene in 2015, writer\/director Trey Edward Shults impressed critics with his super low budget drama, \u201cKrisha.\u201d Set around a Thanksgiving dinner, it was an intense drama that played like a horror movie. With the holiday upon us, \u201cKrisha\u201d would be a nice departure from typical festive fare. But be warned, it\u2019s not a pleasant viewing experience.

After exploring another family dynamic with 2017\u2019s post-apocalyptic horror \u201cIt Comes at Night,\u201d \u201cWaves\u201d returns Shults to gritty, realistic drama. The story follows a high school star wrestler named Tyler (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) as he navigates his senior year. His domineering father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown), has been pushing Tyler to over-achieve. Testosterone rules the household as the two train continuously. But when Tyler injures his shoulder, he\u2019s hesitant to break the news to dad.

\u201cWaves\u201d boasts a running time of two hours and fifteen minutes. While it\u2019s certainly not the longest film in theaters this weekend (that honor goes to Scorsese\u2019s \u201cThe Irishman\u201d), this one feels long. A split-narrative, part one focuses on Tyler\u2019s story, and part two tells us about his little sister Emily (Taylor Russell). Lording over both characters is their tyrannical father. There is no doubt that Ronald means well. But he can go too far. At one point, he forcefully tells his prized son that he has to work harder than everybody else just to succeed.

The family structures present will be well-known to many viewers. Shults\u2019 script doesn\u2019t make any glaring false steps. However, it takes its sweet time to develop. Tyler and Emily are interesting enough, but the meandering approach weighs things down. In the film\u2019s second half, Lucas Hedges (Oscar nominee for \u201cManchester by the Sea\u201d) shows up as Emily\u2019s love interest. They take off on a road trip that is like a completely different movie altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full review online and in print in the Times-Herald: https:\/\/times-herald.com\/news\/2019\/11\/dissecting-the-family-unit<\/a>

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Trey Edward Shults wrestles once again with the family dynamic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1834,79,1833,1697,279,465,1832],"class_list":["post-8059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-cinematography","tag-drama","tag-family-drama","tag-kelvin-harrison","tag-lucas-hedges","tag-sterling-k-brown","tag-trey-edward-shults","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8059"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8062,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8059\/revisions\/8062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}