‘In Waves’ Review: Elegantly Animated Adaptation of AJ Dungo’s Bestseller is an Unapologetically Conventional Tearjerker

A doomed love story, especially one based on real-life young people braving their own “The Fault in Our Stars”-style tale, is bound to shatter even the coldest of hearts. Earnest, disarming and unapologetically conventional, prolific graphic artist Phuong Mai Nguyen’s elegantly animated feature debut “In Waves” 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’ve been standing.

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And you might as well let it do exactly that. “In Waves” 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’t have a distributor yet, but this Cannes Critics’ 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.

Leanly adapted by Fanny Burdino and Samuel Doux from AJ Dungo’s 2019 graphic novel, “In Waves” 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 “planks on wheels.” AJ is shy and awkward, raised by busy but devoted parents, often communicating with him through notes attached on meals they’ve 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’s 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.

Dungo’s graphic novel blends this youthful love story with the history of surfing, something Kristen deeply respects, worshipping at the altar of history’s famous surfers in an almost existential fashion. In distinctly different animation styles and colors, Nguyen’s “In Waves” 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’t 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’s internalized affection for surfing is already captured in detail through well-articulated cinematic language.

Another slight hiccup that occasionally shows some seams is the English-language voice performances by Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu. While the actors are committed, poignant and warm, their upbeat tone doesn’t 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.)

Thankfully, this doesn’t turn out to be a major deal-breaker, especially when the film’s honest demeanor carries it with grace, revealing Kristen’s severe health problems after we sufficiently fall in love with the couple in their ocean-bound outings. The water scenes are among the animation’s 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’s cancer diagnosis is all the more shattering.

From there on out, “In Waves” honors every step of Kristen’s 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’s overprotective parents.) Meanwhile, Kristen’s 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’t 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’s 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.

Similarly themed but lesser fare like “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” often miscalculates the balance between respecting the perspective of the storyteller versus the full-fledged humanity of the one stuck battling a disease. “In Waves” hits all the right notes in that department, never making Kristen’s journey a tool to solely and insensitively fulfill AJ’s 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’s generous eyes. That grief is a wave that ebbs and flows, and it’s very much worth riding.