'Waves'

The tragedy at the heart of filmmaker Trey Edward Shults’ drama “Waves” divides a family, and splits a movie in two — and bringing both together is a perilous journey.

At 18, Tyler Williams (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) would seem to have it made. Growing up in a prosperous family in suburban Miami, Tyler is a star high school wrestler and diligent student, someone being groomed for college and beyond.

But there are cracks in the perfect surface. A nagging shoulder injury is endangering his athletic scholarship, and prompting Tyler to try opioids. His girlfriend, Alexis (Alexa Demie), reports that her period is late. And Tyler is being constantly pushed by his domineering father, Ronald (Sterling K. Brown).

The first half of the film details Tyler’s unraveling, which ends tragically. Then the movie pivots to Tyler’s younger sister, Emily (Taylor Russell), who must live in the aftermath of Tyler’s reputation. She eats lunch alone most days, and can’t communicate with her mother, Catharine (Renée Elise Goldsberry), who has become distant from Ronald.

But Emily may find redemption, when she meets Luke (Lucas Hedges), a nice guy who isn’t phased by Emily’s family issues. Turns out Luke has family issues of his own, specifically a father who’s dying in far-off Missouri.

Shults — following up his 2015 debut “Krisha” and the 2017 horror thriller “It Comes at Night” — applies a lot of artifice to the Williams children’s paired stories, like a new generation of Terence Malick’s infuriatingly elliptical storytelling. (One recurring move is placing a camera in the middle of a car’s cabin, then rapidly spinning it to show us where everyone is in the car.) The showing-off is more noticeable in the first half, but maybe that’s because tragic spirals get Shults’ creative energies flowing more than freely than redemption tales.

In a talented ensemble, young Russell (“Escape Room”) is the standout, playing all of Emily’s complicated emotions — grief, survivor’s guilt, helplessness over his brother’s fate, and a determination to make her own life more meaningful. Russell does that with limited screen time, and with an honesty that raises the film’s second half to the lofty heights its self-absorbed beginning can’t reach.

——

‘Waves’

★★★

Opened November 15 in select cities; opens Friday, December 6, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language throughout, drug and alcohol use, some sexual content and brief violence - all involving teens. Running time: 135 minutes.