{"id":640425,"date":"2026-05-13T10:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640425\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T10:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T10:48:11","slug":"in-waves-review-elegantly-animated-film-of-aj-dungos-bestseller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/640425\/","title":{"rendered":"‘In Waves’ Review: Elegantly Animated Film of AJ Dungo’s Bestseller"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA doomed love story, especially one based on real-life young people braving their own \u201cThe Fault in Our Stars\u201d-style tale, is bound to shatter even the coldest of hearts. Earnest, disarming and unapologetically conventional, prolific graphic artist Phuong Mai Nguyen<\/a>\u2019s elegantly animated feature debut \u201cIn Waves<\/a>\u201d grasps this fact on such a philosophical level that it aims to do not a great deal more than wash over the viewer with its raw sentiments. Right out of the gate, you can see a soft-hearted tearjerker on approach like a rolling wave, one that will inevitably swell in size and break at the exact spot that you\u2019ve been standing.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd you might as well let it do exactly that. \u201cIn Waves\u201d offers viewers a good old-fashioned cry, in the form of a traditional emotional rollercoaster that wants to win over our cynical hearts in hordes. It doesn\u2019t have a distributor yet, but this Cannes Critics\u2019 Week opener could very well turn into an audience favorite if its backers can figure out how to market a youth-focused animation to both older viewers and YA crowds alike.<\/p>\n

\n\tLeanly adapted by Fanny Burdino and Samuel Doux from AJ Dungo\u2019s 2019 graphic novel, \u201cIn Waves\u201d tells the story of AJ and Kristen, two Los Angeles high school students riding different kinds of waves. AJ is a skateboarder who prefers sliding on solid ground, having an intense fear of deep water. Kristen, meanwhile, is an accomplished surfer with a spiritual connection to the ocean, and cannot stand skateboards, calling them \u201cplanks on wheels.\u201d AJ is shy and awkward, raised by busy but devoted parents, often communicating with him through notes attached on meals they\u2019ve left for him. Kristen, on the other hand, is a confident type, usually spending time with the other cool kids of her school, including her own brother (and AJ\u2019s friend), Jeff. The connection between the pair is so undeniable that soon enough, in John Hughes-meets-Cameron Crowe fashion, AJ and Kristen fall in love and start a relationship, forming a band of four with Jeff and his cousin.<\/p>\n

\n\tDungo\u2019s graphic novel blends this youthful love story with the history of surfing, something Kristen deeply respects, worshipping at the altar of history\u2019s famous surfers in an almost existential fashion. In distinctly different animation styles and colors, Nguyen\u2019s \u201cIn Waves\u201d similarly toggles between the past and the present, showing us early civilizations and their oceanside rituals in small drips. Yet these excursions into the past don\u2019t feel entirely successful in the film version. What starts off as an intriguing connective tissue with the present feels like a distraction whenever we go back in time, making us miss Kristen and AJ. In the end, these detours feel redundant, especially because Kristen\u2019s internalized affection for surfing is already captured in detail through well-articulated cinematic language. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnother slight hiccup that occasionally shows some seams is the English-language voice performances by Will Sharpe<\/a> and Stephanie Hsu<\/a>. While the actors are committed, poignant and warm, their upbeat tone doesn\u2019t always blend well with the melancholy of the picture. (Voices were originally recorded in French with a different cast, featuring Rio Vega and Lyna Khoudri.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThankfully, this doesn\u2019t turn out to be a major deal-breaker, especially when the film\u2019s honest demeanor carries it with grace, revealing Kristen\u2019s severe health problems after we sufficiently fall in love with the couple in their ocean-bound outings. The water scenes are among the animation\u2019s most gorgeous and effective, with Kristen teaching AJ how to swim and, soon enough, to surf. Nguyen tenderly captures the lightness, freedom and exhilaration of being in water and reigning over the waves, rules of gravity be damned. Once we experience that level of boundless energy that the couple and their closest confidantes harness in unison, Kristen\u2019s cancer diagnosis is all the more shattering.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom there on out, \u201cIn Waves\u201d honors every step of Kristen\u2019s journey in clinics, hospitals and the ocean, with AJ by her side as one of her biggest allies. (He even manages to win over Kristen\u2019s overprotective parents.) Meanwhile, Kristen\u2019s resilience of spirit remains intact, including when she loses a leg and learns to surf with a prosthetic. Since this is a true story, it isn\u2019t really a spoiler to reveal that the cancer returns, necessitating a reshuffling of priorities by everyone. For AJ and Kristen, it would now be about making memories that last and focusing on a dignified quality of life, with decisions made on Kristen\u2019s own terms. Achieving that takes professional sacrifices and a gorgeous trip taken to northern corners of the West Coast, the vibrant exuberance and mossy textures of which Nguyen captures with delicacy.<\/p>\n

\n\tSimilarly themed but lesser fare like \u201cMe and Earl and the Dying Girl\u201d often miscalculates the balance between respecting the perspective of the storyteller versus the full-fledged humanity of the one stuck battling a disease. \u201cIn Waves\u201d hits all the right notes in that department, never making Kristen\u2019s journey a tool to solely and insensitively fulfill AJ\u2019s coming of age. His grief over Kristen touches and bruises our souls, too, precisely because we get to know her endearing idiosyncrasies on a uniquely personal level, through her partner\u2019s generous eyes. That grief is a wave that ebbs and flows, and it\u2019s very much worth riding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A doomed love story, especially one based on real-life young people braving their own \u201cThe Fault in Our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[32176,88,276500,206,276501,262317,126023],"class_list":["post-640425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-cannes-film-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-in-waves","tag-movies","tag-phuong-mai-nguyen","tag-stephanie-hsu","tag-will-sharpe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}