‘Waves’ at TIFF brings audience to tears

BY SELINA McCALLUM

Life is all about riding the high tides and low tides, and that’s what the film Waves, directed by Trey Edward Shults, displays. It is a movie where art truly imitates life.

Waves premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Tuesday, September 10th. It was a sold-out movie as every seat, including the balcony, in the Ryerson theatre was filled.

I was lucky enough to get a ticket because I am a part of the Black Youth Pathway 2 Industry (BYP2I) program. This program is based in Toronto and helps black youth access and enter the film industry to get paid work. As a documentary filmmaker, I was more than happy to watch a film about a black family who deals with the, simply put, life.

The two-hour long film took us in depth of almost each character, exposing their strengths and vulnerabilities. Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays Tyler, a teenager whose life seems perfect in the beginning.

We see Tyler feel pressure from his father, played by Sterling K. Brown, to do well as an athlete on the wrestling team, despite feeling pain in his shoulder. So, he trains day and night, lifting heavy weights.

The audience could even feel his pain as he wrestles in a match, and the camera focuses on his shoulder being pushed down to the floor. Every person was so silent watching and focusing on the scene that you would have been able to hear a pin drop.

When looking at the relationship between Tyler and his father, it shows a lot about what pushing a child to their limits can do. It also shows the importance of communication, compassion and understanding to have for one another. Tyler was so afraid to tell his father about his injured shoulder, that he continued to train and wrestle anyway, which could have jeopardized his whole career.

As the movie progresses, we see the relationship that Tyler has with his younger sister and his mother. One night, Tyler comes home drunk from hanging out with friends. He ends up throwing up in the bathroom, and his younger sister, Emily played by Taylor Russel, comforts him as he cries. To me, this scene showed gender roles being switched as the boy cries, while the girl comforts.

The next character we get an in depth story of is Emily. Taylor Russel does an excellent job of bringing her character to life by being sweet, shy and quiet. Once Emily meets a boy, we get to see her come alive with excitement and become her own person through this relationship.

Shults has done an amazing job bringing potentially real stories to a screen. He really grasped the human experience in this film by making it emotional, funny and authentic. Shults is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. He is best known as the director and writer of the drama Krisha, and the psychological horror film It Comes at Night.

Shults won three awards for his film, Krisha which is about a troubled woman named Krisha Fairchild who reunites with her extended family that she abandoned years earlier.

Waves is a must-see film because of its extremely honest and emotional breakdown of decision making. Life is made up of the choices we make and how we choose to stand by them after we’ve made them. That is exactly what we see in Waves as each character is faced with a decision to make that could change their life forever.