Not to sound too dated but if you remember with fondness 1970’s classic boy meets girl-boy loves girl-boy loses girl love story titled, of course, Love Story, then I have a new animated feature that is kind of the West Coast version on water.
Replacing Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw in their snowy winter-set east coast movie that starts with the line, “what can you say about a 25 year old girl who dies?” is this sunny sweet L.A.-set slightly younger version with a (initially) water phobic A.J. (voiced by Will Sharpe) and surfer girl extraordinaire Kristen (Stephanie Hsu). They meet cute at a high school dance party where he almost literally jumps into her existence and becomes smitten immediately. It is love at first sight, but of course they are opposites. He is a devoted skateboarder, she can’t stand them thinking they are an abberation of the true art of surfing which must only be done in the rolling waves, not on pavement. Okay we know where this is going, but it is the getting there that will move you to tears.
Yes, they slowly get together and, in a reverse of Moondoggie teaching novice Gidget how to navigate the Malibu waves, this is Kristen instructing A.J., first how to swim, and then how to hang ten. This is also where the film dips into the past and becomes awash in the proud history of Hawaiian surfing, bowing at the legend of the great Duke Kahanamoku and going deep into others and how the sport became such a religion for many, notably devotee Kristen. But this surf lesson aside, at its heart this is a relationship story, one that takes a sad turn when Kristen’s pain becomes a cancer diagnosis and A.J. a caregiver as her hopes and dreams, and theirs, threaten to wipe out the future we have been rooting for them to have. Not to be daunted Kristen chooses to have a leg amputated, replaced with a prosthetic, rather than lose the ability to surf.
We see some of this being rather quietly foretold in flashes of a solo A.J. fulfilling an art project drawing pictures of the ocean and of Kristen, so we know where we might be heading even if we haven’t seen Love Story on blu ray. It doesn’t matter, because this is also a true story which screenwriters Fanny Burdino and Samuel Doux have based on A.J. Dungo’s 2019 graphic novel. It becomes a memoir of loss, of grief, of dealing with life’s saddest moments in waves that take you over but never under. That is the poignant truth of In Waves, and that is also along with the gorgeous animation in director Phuong Mal Nguyen’s debut feature, what makes this such a lovely and touching story, all seen through the eyes of A.J. and not to be forgotten.
Excellently voiced in the english language version by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu (the original French version opening July 1 in France had Rio Vega and Lyna Khoudri) , the film premiered last month as the opening attraction of the Cannes Film Festival Critics Week, and today premieres in competition at the Annecy Film Festival. Netflix is promising to take it much further, globally in fact, as the streamer picked the film up out of Cannes and will be shepherding through awards season as well.
Producers are Priscilla Bertin, Judith Nora, Nick Shumaker.
Screenplay: Fanny Burdino and Samuel Doux
Cast: Will Sharpe, Stephanie Hsu (english language version) ; Rio Vega, Lyna Khoudri (french version)
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