TAFFF Review: In Waves is a smooth and stylish story of life (and love) cut tragically short

It's a big year for animated adaptations of graphic memoirs about losing a loved one to a horrible disease. While Tangles explored the impact of a woman's Alzheimer's diagnosis on her family, In Waves is about the way a blossoming relationship is affected by a young woman's cancer diagnosis. Despite their similar-ish origins, the movies couldn't feel more different, though they both (obviously) are extremely emotional watches. 

Based on AJ Dungo's autobiographical graphic novel, In Waves is a stunner. That it's so slick and stylish speaks to the transformative power of art to make something beautiful out of something ugly and tragic. The horrible things we face in our lives can be the seeds of great art, meaningful art, art that makes you want to curl up into a ball and weep, or rush home and give your loved ones extra-tight hugs. The ability to look at your life, process it and shape it into something narratively digestible, and then to share it with the world -- pain and agony and loss and warts and all -- is an act of astonishing vulnerability, and generosity. Stories like these help people to contextualize and process the pain in their own lives, to feel less alone. Life goes on, however different it looks after, however long the days end up feeling, however slow they pass by.

We meet AJ when he's still in high school. He's a bit awkward, shy, but a sweet kid with a good head on his shoulders. He spends a lot of time drawing and skateboarding, but that changes when he (literally) bumps into Kristen, an energetic and beautiful surfer who wants to lure AJ into the ocean. He's never been drawn to surfing before -- he's a bit aquaphobic, per his best friend -- but when you're a teenage boy and a pretty girl asks you to do something...well...

What follows is, in some ways, a pretty conventional love story of a very specific type: teenage love marked by illness. AJ and Kristen fall for each other, but during their college years, Kristen gets diagnosed with cancer. It's a story we've seen in various shapes and forms before, but there's a quality to the storytelling that makes In Waves feel fresh. It certainly helps knowing that it's a true story. That alone gives it extra weight. But the film also does a nice job of moving between its threads so smoothly, stylishly. While most of the action is present-tense AJ-and-Kristen, we also get some flashes forward, to the after, where we see AJ working on his graphic novel about Kristen out of a van parked on the beach, and also catching some waves there. There are also scenes detailing the origins of surfing in Hawai'i, which serve to add context to the sport Kristen, and later AJ, love, and the miracle it is that the sport still exists at all, as Christian missionaries tried to ban it during their colonization of the Hawaiian islands.

While the surfing history stuff is interesting, and is narratively relevant in a few ways (it's the basis of AJ's art school thesis project, as well), I did find that these scenes sometimes felt a bit clunky, cutting into the film's momentum and not tying as cleanly into the overall vision. The film is, as I said, fairly straightforward, so these asides kind of took me out of the action a bit. I think the thought behind it is about surfing being something to be passed on. Just as native Hawaiians created surfing, and Duke Kahanamoku essentially saved it by bringing it to the US, now Kristen is passing the passion on to AJ, and he'll likely share it with others. Their love story falls into a larger history of surfing, small as a blip as they might be in that history. This could've (and arguably should've) been hit a little harder in the film, but it still works fairly well.

What works much better is the love story. AJ and Kristen are both such root-for-able characters, and they're brought to brilliant life through both the film's stunning animation, and the great performances from Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu. Sharpe particularly impressed me, the way he's able to capture AJ's arc from being a sweet/shy teen with a big crush to a supportive partner trying to navigate a life that looks so different from what he imagined for himself and Kristen. 

The film's animation is gorgeous, and uses a cool 3D-to-2D pipeline, where 3D models allowed the animators to get the depth and movement in place for the characters before drawing/painting on top of them. The result is a vivid and detailed art style that I never got tired of looking at -- I just wanted to get lost in it. The characters are so expressive, the colors pop, the movements are super detailed. As you would expect/hope, the surfing sequences are really stunning, especially the one in the film's final moments, where the title's double meaning is laid out plainly. I also love how smoothly the film transitions between scenes, with a lot of clever edits like the bubbles of a drink flowing freely into the bubbles of the ocean. That kind of thing always works for me.

In Waves may be treading a lot of familiar territory, but its real-life roots and the level of artistry across the board make it one of this year's standout animated features. It's beautiful, heartfelt, and honest. Life is short, so love can be too. Treasure every moment. Catch every wave you can.