Waves is one of the most emotionally devastating movies you’ll see all year. Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults, the film follows the trials and tribulations of a family living in South Florida. Like Shults’ two previous films – Krisha and It Comes at Night – Waves is tense, raw, and often anxiety-inducing. But it’s also a movie about redemption. Watch the Waves trailer below.

Waves Trailer

Waves was one of the best films I saw at TIFF this year, although it left me drained. As I said in my review, “Few filmmakers working today know how to induce anxiety in their audience as masterfully as Trey Edward Shults. Even during scenes when things technically aren’t going wrong, Shults’s focus creates a palpable sense of dread. Yes, everything might be fine on screen for now…but it’s only a matter of time before some sort of Sword of Damocles drops and shatters everything, and everyone, to a million pieces.”

Shults gave us the cinematic panic attack that was Krisha and the slow-burn post-apocalyptic horror-family-drama It Comes At Night. With Waves, the director has crafted his most ambitious film to date – a dizzying, weighty, heart-wrenching saga of one family disintegrating right before our eyes.”

What separates Waves from Krisha and It Comes at Night, though, is a chance at redemption. There’s hope buried in all that anxiety. Waves is set in South Florida, and “traces the epic emotional journey of a suburban African-American family- led by a well-intentioned but domineering father-as they navigate love, forgiveness and coming together in the aftermath of a loss.”

The film plays out almost as two movies in one. The first focuses on Tyler (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a high school wrestler being pushed to extremes by his father (Sterling K. Brown). The second follows Tyler’s Emily (Taylor Russell) as she navigates her own high school experience, and starts a relationship with an awkward but charming classmate (Lucas Hedges). There’s a lot more going on here, but the less you know, the more powerful the movie will be.

Waves, starring Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Lucas Hedges, Taylor Russell, Alexa Demie, with Renée Elise Goldsberry and Sterling K. Brown, opens November 15.

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