Few movies are as clearly presented in a traditional three-act structure as "Waves."
Act 1: A lot of impressionistic bits that don't really tell a story and could easily be replaced or removed.
Act 2: Things actually happen in a coherent manner, all leading up to a stunning, unusually compelling and well-crafted climax.
Act 3: A sweet, though slight, little story almost entirely unrelated to the first two acts and suddenly focusing on a character who, until this time, had been minor and of little importance to the picture.
"For what?" he texts back.
Things go downhill for him from there. Tyler makes a cascade of bad decisions, which is not unusual for adolescents, even adolescents who are 25.
If only writer-director Trey Edward Shults had the sense to stop there, with the bad decisions, the film might have had a lasting impact _ though to be fair to the picture, the audience I saw it with seemed to love it all. But Shults tacked on another 45 minutes of additional impressionistic bits because he had a point he wanted to make.
The point is this: Love will keep us together. A preacher says as much early in the film, but heck, even Captain & Tennille knew it.
"Waves" does not break new philosophical ground, nor does it add anything to the cliches of the troubled teenager, until it does.
Instead, Shults shoots for new ground in his presentation. Drew Daniels' camera tilts and whirls and dives and prowls, often with insufficient light, in an apparent effort to distract the viewer from the fact that, at least in the first and third acts, very little is happening.
Meanwhile, sound designer Johnnie Burn makes the curious decision to cover up or muffle much of what little dialogue there is, often with music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Perhaps that's why many of the most important conversations take place via text _ at least that way we know what they are talking about.
It's a tangential film, or perhaps elliptical. It approaches its ideas from the side without ever actually coming straight at them. As a result, we sometimes have to try to guess at what is going on.
For instance, at one point in the film, the father and his wife (Renee Elise Goldsberry) have an important conversation about how they are breaking apart. This is news to us. We have no idea they are breaking apart. In fact, we have not seen either one of them for a full 30 minutes before that conversation.
Perhaps you have heard of the old Hollywood adage "show, don't tell." It means filmmakers should let the audience see what is happening, not hear the characters describe it.
Other than the stunning climax that, by all rights, should have ended the film, Shults seems to be unfamiliar with the concept.
