‘Waves’ Movie Ending Explained – Did Emily Forgive Tyler?

‘Waves’ is a 2019 American drama film helmed by Trey Edward Shults, who also wrote and produced it alongside Kevin Turen and James Wilson. The film features a stellar cast including Kelvin Harrison Jr., Taylor Russell, Lucas Hedges, Alexa Demie, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Sterling K. Brown. ‘Waves’ follows the emotional journey of a suburban family as they deal with love, forgiveness, and unity following a devastating loss. A24 likes to bring the stories of psychological unraveling to the screen, and the first part of the ‘Waves’ definitely plays like just one more in line with their movies, but the second half is truly inspirational with amazing character growth. The thing is the ending leaves a lot of questions unanswered and that’s why we’re here. Let’s see what ‘Waves’ was really about.

The Williams family has everything

The first character we meet is Tyler Williams. He seemingly has everything a loving family, he is about to go to college this fall, he is on the wrestling team and works part-time for his father who owns a construction company, and his stepmother. Tyler has a sister Emily, but during the first portion of the movie, she isn’t exactly in the focus and is barely seen on screen.

Tyler also has a girlfriend, Alexis and the two seem happy together with Tyler appearing as a loving and attentive boyfriend. We really can’t find a single flaw with Tyler’s family, they are well off and his father Ronald Williams works as hard as possible for his children to have opportunities he did not have. Ronald is a bit domineering in that sense he is a strict father who doesn’t tolerate his children being average. He pushes Tyler to have perfect sports results and perfect school results and insists on Tyler earning his own money.

Ronald is obsessed with Tyler making a good life for himself this is why he trains with him every opportunity he gets. Tyler finds that annoying, but he realizes that everything he has is due to his father’s sacrifices and hardass nature and he doesn’t complain as much. He is ultimately a good kid. The family is also god-fearing as the Williams’ spend every Sunday in church. Tyler often gets some break from his strict father by partying with his friends and has a pretty balanced friends group. What more can we say, Tyler seemingly had everything, but as this is an A24 movie, it’s about to unravel.

Tyler is on the verge of losing everything

Since Tyler frequently complained about the pain in his shoulder, his parents talked him into going to the doctor, his father urged him to repair the damage as soon as possible otherwise he might miss out on the current wrestling season and the scholarship. Even though Tyler tries to downplay the damage we can see him stealing painkillers from his father, indicating the issue is much worse than we think.

Tyler’s girlfriend Alexis, also lets him know that her period is late. At first, Tyler is not worried his main preoccupation now is the result of MRI. Tyler visits the doctor’s office again in a few days, it is revealed that he has a level 5 SLAP tear, meaning that he is dangerously close to dealing irreparable damage to his bicep and shoulder meaning that he will have to quit wrestling possibly forever. Tyler asks the doctor whether it’s possible for him to finish the current season and then do the surgery over the course of the summer. The Doctor says that Tyler’s shoulder won’t last a single match, the damage is too extensive and the recovery will last a lot longer than 3 months.

Tyler leaves the doctor’s office refusing to follow the recommendations he also doesn’t want to tell his parents what happened, so he keeps everything a secret.

Tyler loses his scholarship and gets addicted to pills

Tyler has a wrestling match scheduled and his parents still have no idea what went down. When he loses a match and the extent of his injuries is revealed his parents are shocked when they find out the truth and he is grounded for lying. We can see Tyler wearing a brace and getting addicted to painkillers. He also starts dabbling in other drugs and alcohol to mute the pain of failure. His wrestling career was officially over even before it started.

The other issue that Tyler has is with Alexis, at this point Alexis’ period is later for 3 weeks and it’s quite obvious that she is pregnant. Tyler tries to reassure her telling her that everything is going to be alright and he is there for her.

The next day, Tyler and Alexis go to Planned Parenthood to get an abortion but Alexis has a change of heart and storms out of the building. Tyler is mad at her for not going through with the abortion the two start violently arguing and he calls her a bitch on several occasions with Alexis going as far as to slap him. Alexis leaves his car and starts walking home on foot. Tyler leaves her in the middle of the city and drives away furious at her.

Later that day he goes partying, he returns home sick beyond measure, and wakes up his sister Emily vomiting. He breaks down in her arms and starts crying, for the first time displaying deep and profound grief.

Alexis wants to keep the baby & Tyler kills her for it

Tyler misses Alexis and decides to send her a text of apology. He writes to her that it’s stupid that they are not talking and says that Maverick Ball is coming up and they should be there together. Alexis writes back that she is sorry too and that she has made her decision and hopes that he will be supportive.

Tyler is already getting pissed and tries to call her directly but Alexis declines his call. Alexis writes him another message telling him that she doesn’t want to talk to him when he is mad while Tyler argues that they shouldn’t talk about such serious matters over texts.

Alexis says that she doesn’t want to speak to him any longer while he is acting like a jerk and he asks her whether she is home he is going to come over. Alexis reveals that she already told her parents about the pregnancy and that they are really supportive unlike him and promptly breaks up with him. Tyler attempts to call her but Alexis already blocked him. Tyler starts panicking and throws his phone into a wall.

A few days later Maverick Ball is taking place and Tyler is browsing Instagram when he sees a video of Alexis all dressed up to go the ball but she is going with some other guy and the two seem to be pretty close. Tyler loses his mind and starts drowning his sorrow and anger in drugs and alcohol. He drinks until later into the night and eventually attempts to take his father’s car to crash the after-party.

He is stopped by Catherine, his stepmother and she tells him that he is grounded and accuses him of being drunk. He starts insulting her and tells her that she is not even his real mother and has no right to tell him what to do. Ronald shows up and tries to discipline Tyler but he pushes his father away, driving away to the party.

Meanwhile, at the party, Emily and Alexis briefly hang out in the bathroom, when Emily sees Tyler crashing the party she knows that something bad is about to take place but makes no attempts to stop it. Tyler manages to locate Alexis and accuses her of drinking and cheating on him. Alexis explains that the drinks are for her friends and the guy she was with at the Maverick Ball is her long-time gay friend. She wants to leave but Tyler grabs her and in a short scuffle, he pushes her on the floor.

It takes a second for Tyler to realize that Alexis is seriously injured, she injured her skull with blood pooling rapidly underneath her. He escapes and Alexis is found by her friends and Emily. She is in critical condition and Ronald arrives at the scene at the same time as paramedics he can see a body being ushered into the ambulance. Emily confirms that Tyler was at the scene.

Tyler meanwhile tries to flee but returns home on foot, he is soon arrested by the police. At the hospital, we can see that Alexis is being operated on but she soon dies from her injuries.

Tyler gets life in prison while the rest of the Williams family gets eternal grief

A few months have gone by and Tyler is at the courthouse on trial, he is accused and found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with a possibility of parole after 30 years. This means that Tyler might possibly be released from prison when he is 48 years old.

Tyler’s family breaks out in tears after the sentence has been passed while Tyler is pretty much emotionless. On the other side, we can see Alexis’ family also breaking out in tears, Ronald is too ashamed to even look in their direction. This is the point in the movie where Emily becomes the main character. We can see her becoming more depressed as the time goes by. She is isolated from her friends and no one really seems to talk to her in school.

She reads hours upon hours of hateful messages sent to her and her family in general, and life doesn’t look good at all currently. She still has plans for the future but it’s looking more grim as the days pass by.

Emily meets Luke and the two attempt to fix each other

One day at school Emily is approached by Luke, a boy who was supposedly on a wrestling team with Tyler. He awkwardly asks her out and she accepts. At the diner, Emily explains that she deleted her social media account due to hateful messages. Luke explains that he is aware of what her brother had done but he doesn’t care. It wasn’t her and Tyler is currently returning his debt to society.

Following this first date, Luke and Emily start dating and spending more time together the times spent with Luke are the times are only times where she is genuinely happy. Luke also reveals that he was abused by his father, and he is not currently in contact with him despite his dying of cancer. Emily also reveals that her biological mother died while she was young, she overdosed and she doesn’t even remember her.

Back at home, Emily accidentally overhears her parents fighting. Catherine no longer has sex with Ronald, she is grieving by alienating herself from the family while Ronald tells her that this needs to stop.

Catherine in turn accuses Ronald of pushing Tyler with his strict upbringing and accuses him of ignoring Emily and focusing all of his energy on Tyler. It’s obvious that their marriage is on the rocks and both blame each other for everything that transpired. Catherine tells Ronald that he makes her sick and she can’t even look at him. Later, Emily and Luke have sex for the first time, deepening their relationship.

Ronald wants to make amends

Ronald invites Emily on a fishing trip and asks her how she is handling the thing with Tyler and she initially says that she is good with it. Ronald expresses how sad he is that he didn’t really talk to her since everything went down and Emily assures him that it’s okay. He also admits that he doesn’t know how to connect with Catherine any longer and their business is going down because Catherine refuses to come to work. He breaks down crying and apologizes for telling her all of this but he has no one else to talk to.

Emily assures him that she is happy that he is telling her all of that, and opens up her heart. Emily admits that she saw Tyler going for Alexis that night but she did nothing to stop it. She could have said or done anything and Alexis would still be alive revealing how incredibly guilty she feels. She also reveals that she hates Tyler and considers him evil, as only an evil truly heinous person could do something like this.

Ronald assures her that Tyler is not evil, he is simply human and that she shouldn’t hold onto hatred and love has more potent power to change the world. She needs to let go of that guilt and that anger and hatred toward her brother. They both break down in tears and hug. The relationship between father and daughter was mended.

Emily talks Luke into seeing his father

After a few days, Luke and Emily are hanging out at his home and he mentions that he was contacted by the hospice his father is staying in and tells her that he only has a few days to live. Emily tells Luke that he should definitely go and see his father he will regret it for the rest of his life if he misses this opportunity to forgive him. Emily assures Luke that she will drive him there and accompany him through the process.

Once inside the hospice, Luke’s father is happy to see him and he calls Emily beautiful. Luke seemingly reconnects with him and forgives him for the years of abuse. Later, the nurse comes in and says that Luke’s dad is holding onto something still, despite being on the verge of death something is still keeping him alive.

During the night, Emily dreams about Tyler and she wakes up suddenly seeing Luke’s father sitting on the bed. She wakes up Luke and Luke takes him to the bathroom while Emily lets her family know that she is safe and that she will explain everything when she gets back but she needs to do this, for the sake of the entire family.

The next day, Luke is telling his father that he can let go of life, that it’s fine, that he is going to a better place, and that he doesn’t need to hold onto life and suffering any longer. Luke’s father passes away and Emily confronts him on the way home.

So, what happened in the end? How did Emily forgive Tyler?

In the last scenes of the movie, we can see Tyler in his prison cell staring at the photo of Alexis, in the cafeteria he starts praying before he eats his meal. Alexis’ parents are grieving near her tombstone while Catherine drives to the prison to visit Tyler for the first time. Emily and Luke connect even deeper, while Ronald and Catherine decide to work on their marriage. The last scene in the movie is Emily driving away on her bike, riding it hands-free.

So what happened? How did Luke’s father influence Emily so much? Well, you see Luke hated his father because of the abuse that he and his mother suffered at this hands but Luke also found strength and determination to forgive him and didn’t allow the hatred to consume him. Emily learned a lot from Luke despite her being the reason he was here in the first place.

That night when Emily dreamt of Tyler and woke up to see Luke’s father staring at her, it was actually a pretty powerful symbolism. Luke’s father was to Luke what Tyler was to her, and seeing how light Luke felt when he forgave his father inspired Emily to do the same with her brother and that’s why she sent that message to her family. She needed to stay with Luke to see how to forgive and forget, how to be light and hate-free again.

After Emily moved on and forgave her brother, everybody could move on and do the same. Emily followed Ronald’s advice and she was finally free. This is what the last scene signifies, that she is free and light as a feather.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!