I watched Waves (directed by Trey Edward Shults, known for his previous atmospheric horror film, It Comes at Night) with a kind of curiosity that was rather more on the aesthetic side of things (which is also where the film scores its temporary triumph): a drama about a family of color, that is conventional and subdued, almost non-confrontational, strangely embalmed under the wraps of a fashion music video. In short, Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), the family’s son who is an 18-year-old teenager that is ready to boil over, a small but ambitious storm that picks up wrestling to avoid disappointing his father, has an irreversible accident that involves one of his arms, and that’s where things start to go wrong – he can no longer practice any sports, his girlfriend gets pregnant, his starry-eyed approach to life suddenly loses its glean and is replaced by a crater that lands smack in the middle of his family. Lacking any moral epicenter, Tyler has no one to talk to, even though his family is supportive (with the notable exception of his father, his unwavering gaze seemingly regarding him as a racehorse at times); he takes refuge in alcohol and drugs and ends up derailing his life. There are two racial observations throughout the film: the first one is covert, as Tyler’s dad hints upon the fact that he must put in ten times the amount that a white person must in order to achieve something in their lives, and that he mustn’t get too comfortable; and, secondly, as Tyler (who is in front of a clinic) is gratuitously called the n-word by an elderly lady, which makes Tyler swear, but not too much, seemingly not too bothered by the event. Trey Edward Shults acts as if his protagonists were white – and so as if their problems were also something that is to be solved behind the scenes. If its way of dodging the family’s racial problems is almost charming at first (prompting one to say ‘at last, here’s a film that avoids some problems which others may dramatize in a way that may seem way too ostensible’); as the film goes on, it becomes clear that Shults literally doesn’t see the color of his protagonists – for him, they must have the same upper middle class lives as any given family of white people and so, implicitly, the same means to solve them. It seems at least partially strange to opt out of a political discourse – especially in a film which discusses the dynamics of a family of color that is facing a trauma – because such traumas are not insular, but rather, they affect entire communities (and in each and every corner of the United States, such events breed even more discrimination and isolation).

Georgiana Mușat

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Georgiana Mușat e critic de film și jurnalist, masterandă UNATC. Are o memorie de elefant și inima cât un purice când aude de Terrence Malick. Scrie o lucrare interminabilă despre femei roboți. La Films in Frame scrie rubrica lunară Panorama.

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