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Emily’s narrative is one of quiet, radical grace. She navigates a home broken by grief, where her father has retreated into rigid denial and her mother (Renée Elise Goldsberry) tries to hold the fragments together. Emily finds solace in a tentative, beautiful romance with her kind-hearted classmate Luke (Lucas Hedges). Where Tyler’s relationships were transactional and high-stakes, Emily’s are patient and healing. Their scenes together—driving through the Florida suburbs, sharing headphones—are the film’s emotional anchor. Through Emily, Shults suggests that while we cannot choose the waves that hit us, we can choose the shore onto which we wash up. Her journey is not about forgetting Tyler’s crime but about learning to carry that scar without letting it define her.
: Tyler’s struggle highlights the "suffocation" that comes with the pressure to be perfect. waves movie
The film’s power is heavily derived from its technical execution. The soundtrack, heavily influenced by Frank Ocean’s Blonde , acts as a secondary narrator, reflecting the "male/female experience" and the differing ways the siblings process their environment. With tracks from Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator, the music anchors the film in a specific contemporary reality, making the characters feel "human and real" rather than archetypes. Emily’s narrative is one of quiet, radical grace
The second part of the film takes a dramatic turn after a traumatic event occurs, causing the family to confront their past and present struggles. Her journey is not about forgetting Tyler’s crime
The second half of Waves shifts its focus to Tyler’s sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), as she and her parents navigate the debris of their shattered lives. Where the first half was defined by kinetic energy and "sensory overload," the second is marked by stillness and breathing room. This structural choice parallels the process of grieving: the initial, explosive shock followed by the long, agonizingly slow process of reconstruction.