Netflix’s animated adaptation of AJ Dungo’s graphic novel is a gorgeous and deeply moving love story that reminds us that grief never truly disappears, but neither does the love we carry for those we’ve lost.
Last night, I had the opportunity to watch Netflix’s new animated film In Waves, directed by Phuong Mai Nguyen and adapted from AJ Dungo’s graphic novel of the same name. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since, and the more I reflect on what I watched, the more personal the experience becomes.
Set against the sun-soaked surf culture of Southern California, In Waves tells the true story of AJ (Will Sharpe) and Kristen (Stephanie Hsu), two young people who fall in love and discover just how much another person can change their life. What begins as a beautiful coming-of-age romance becomes something far more heartbreaking as the couple navigates illness, sacrifice, and the uncertainty of how much time we actually have with the people we love.
As someone who lost their mother to cancer and has experienced several other devastating losses, In Waves brought back memories and emotions I carry with me every day. I went into this film expecting a beautiful animated love story, but I wasn’t prepared for how much of my own life I would see reflected in it.
A Beautiful Love Story Brought to Life Through Animation
One of the greatest strengths of In Waves is how much time it spends allowing us to fall in love with AJ and Kristen before their lives are turned upside down. AJ is a shy, somewhat awkward skateboarder who feels far more comfortable on solid ground than anywhere near deep water, while Kristen is almost his complete opposite. She’s confident, adventurous, and completely at home in the ocean, finding a sense of freedom in surfing that AJ has never experienced.
There’s something effortlessly charming about their relationship, particularly in how these two people bring out something different in each other. Kristen encourages AJ to face his fears, while AJ gives her someone who genuinely sees and loves her for who she is. Through Kristen, his love for skating slowly becomes a love for surfing, and what once terrified him becomes something that brings him closer to the person he loves. I think there’s something incredibly beautiful about how love can change us, sometimes pushing us outside everything we’ve ever known and helping us discover parts of ourselves we didn’t even know existed.
Phuong Mai Nguyen brings their relationship to life through gorgeous hand-drawn animation. The warm, watercolor-inspired visuals make Southern California feel almost dreamlike, while the surfing sequences capture both the peacefulness of floating in the water and the exhilarating freedom of riding a wave. I also loved how the film incorporates the history of surfing, exploring its cultural significance through striking black-and-white animation. These sequences add another layer to the film’s relationship with the ocean, reminding us that it has connected people across generations. The English-language voice performances from Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu bring wonderful warmth to the relationship, making even the smallest moments feel meaningful, which becomes especially important once the story takes its devastating turn.
The Ocean Becomes a Character of Its Own
One of the things I found most beautiful about In Waves is how the film uses the ocean to represent the unpredictability of life, love, and grief. At first, the waves are gentle, peaceful, and comforting. The ocean becomes a place of freedom and connection for AJ and Kristen, but as Kristen’s battle with cancer progresses, those same waves grow bigger, more powerful, and increasingly overwhelming until everything comes crashing down. I couldn’t stop thinking about how perfectly that captures what it’s like to watch someone you love fight for their life.
The very thing that once frightened AJ becomes what connects him to Kristen, and eventually those same waters begin reflecting his fear of losing her. What makes this visual storytelling so effective is that the ocean never really changes what it is. It’s always beautiful, powerful, and capable of being destructive. What changes is our relationship with it, and isn’t that exactly what happens when we experience loss? Sometimes the water is calm, and for a moment, everything feels normal again. Then another wave comes crashing over you, leaving you struggling to find your footing. In Waves captures that feeling in a way I found both beautiful and devastating.
Loving Someone Through the Unimaginable
What makes In Waves so extraordinary isn’t simply that it explores loss. It’s that it understands what it means to love someone through the most devastating moments of their life, including the sacrifices, difficult conversations, and uncertainty that come with watching someone fight an illness.
As Kristen’s health deteriorates, we see the emotional weight it places on both of them. She doesn’t want AJ to stop pursuing his dreams because of her, while AJ struggles to support the person he loves while confronting his fears about their future. Neither has all the answers, and the film never pretends that love makes these circumstances any less complicated. What broke my heart about these moments was how much I understood that feeling of wanting to be there for someone, regardless of what it might mean for your own life. When someone you love receives life-altering news, being there doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. It feels like the only place in the world you could possibly want to be.
I also appreciate that Kristen never becomes a character defined solely by her illness. She’s funny, passionate, determined, and sometimes stubborn, and even after losing her leg, she fights to return to the ocean and continue surfing because it’s part of who she is. The film never loses sight of her individuality or her desire to keep living life on her own terms, which makes her journey even more moving.
I remember being there with my mom when we were told she had six months to live. There’s nothing that can prepare you for hearing those words about someone you love, but my mom fought. She went through chemotherapy and radiation, and somehow those six months turned into a few more years together. They weren’t always easy years, and there was pain, uncertainty, fear, and heartbreak, but there was also love, laughter, and memories I’ll forever be grateful for.
Through it all, she kept fighting right up until the very end, and I was there when my mom took her last breath. Watching AJ experience that same devastating moment in In Waves brought me right back to a place I don’t think I’ll ever fully leave. I cried watching this film, I’ve cried thinking about it since, and even now, trying to put these feelings into words, I find myself getting emotional all over again.
When you’ve lived through something similar, you recognize the conversations you never imagined you’d have, the helplessness of wanting to do absolutely anything to make someone better, and the moments when you try to be strong for the person you love even when you’re falling apart inside. Perhaps most painfully, you recognize that no matter how much you love someone, you can’t always save them. But what you can do is be there. You can love them, support them, and make whatever time you have together matter. That’s something In Waves captures so beautifully, and it’s one of the reasons this film affected me as much as it did.
When Grief Comes in Waves
Losing my mom wasn’t the only time I’ve experienced that kind of grief. About a year after she passed away, I lost my best friend suddenly to a brain hemorrhage. There was no time to prepare or come to terms with the possibility of losing someone. One moment, someone who had been such an important part of my life was here, and then suddenly they weren’t. Shortly afterward, I experienced another devastating loss when the nanny who helped raise me and my brothers passed away from a heart-related issue.
Calling her our nanny almost feels like an understatement of what she meant to us. She wasn’t simply someone who took care of us when we were children; she became part of our family, remaining in our lives long after we’d grown into adults. Losing her meant losing another person who had been part of my life for as long as I could remember.
It was an incredibly difficult few years, and I think that’s something people don’t always understand about grief. Sometimes you barely have time to process one loss before another comes along. You begin finding your footing, only for another wave to hit before you’ve recovered from the last one. That’s why the imagery in In Waves affected me so deeply. The waves don’t ask whether you’re ready for them; they just keep coming, and sometimes all you can do is try to stay afloat.
But what I find so beautiful about this film is that it reminds us why those waves hurt so much in the first place. It’s because we loved these people, because they mattered, and because they helped shape who we became. My mom, my best friend, and someone who helped raise me are all gone, but the love I have for them hasn’t disappeared. I think that’s what AJ Dungo understands so beautifully about grief. It’s not simply learning to live without someone; it’s learning to continue living with all the love they left behind.
The Ocean, My Mother, and a Dream I Finally Got to Live
Another reason In Waves connected with me so deeply is my own relationship with the ocean. I’ve always loved the water, and the ocean has always been one of my escapes, much like movies have been throughout my life. There’s something about being near it that makes the rest of the world feel a little quieter, even when everything else feels overwhelming.
One of my biggest dreams growing up was to go cage diving with great white sharks. It was something I talked about with my mom for years, and she always told me it was something I would do one day. Last April, I finally got the opportunity to make that dream a reality, and being out in the ocean, surrounded by these magnificent creatures, was an experience I’ll never forget. Of course, I thought about my mom while I was there, but I was so caught up in the excitement of finally accomplishing something I’d dreamed about for so long that the emotional weight of that moment didn’t fully hit me. Strangely enough, it wasn’t until I watched In Waves that everything came flooding back.
Watching AJ and Kristen’s relationship with the ocean unfold, I suddenly found myself thinking about that day differently. I’d finally accomplished something my mom always believed I would do, but the person I wanted to share that moment with more than anyone wasn’t there. For whatever reason, that realization hit me harder watching this film than it did when I was actually out on the water. Maybe that’s one of the strangest things about grief. Sometimes we don’t fully understand the emotional significance of a moment until something unexpectedly brings us back to it. As I watched In Waves, I found myself hoping that somehow, wherever she was, my mom knew I’d finally accomplished that dream. More than anything, I hoped I’d made her proud.
The ocean also holds another deeply personal memory because it was one of the first places I went after my mom passed away. I couldn’t explain why I needed to be there at the time, but I knew that I did. Maybe it was the sound of the waves or the feeling of standing before something so vast and powerful when everything in my own life felt small and fragile. The ocean brought AJ and Kristen together, and for me, it became one of the places where I could still feel connected to my mom. Sometimes the waves bring back memories that hurt more than we expect, but sometimes they remind us just how lucky we were to have loved someone so deeply.
In Waves Is a Celebration of the Love That Remains
One of the things I appreciate most about In Waves is that it doesn’t suggest grief is something we simply overcome, because I don’t believe that’s how grief works. You don’t wake up one morning and suddenly stop missing someone, and you don’t reach a point where the loss no longer matters. You simply learn how to live with it. Some days are easier than others. Sometimes you can remember someone and smile, while other days something as simple as a song, photograph, or movie brings everything rushing back. That’s what happened to me watching this film.
AJ Dungo has taken something deeply personal and heartbreaking and turned it into a beautiful reminder of what it means to love someone so completely that their presence continues shaping your life long after they’re gone. Through Phuong Mai Nguyen’s gorgeous animated adaptation, that story has the opportunity to reach people carrying their own grief and memories. There’s something remarkable about storytelling that allows us to find pieces of ourselves in someone else’s experiences, and it’s one of the reasons I’ve always loved movies. Sometimes they provide an escape from reality, while other times they force us to confront the parts of reality we’ve spent years trying to understand.
I went into In Waves expecting a beautiful animated love story, but walked away feeling like someone had taken pieces of my own life, my own loss, and my own relationship with the ocean and put them on screen. As heartbreaking as that experience was, I’m incredibly grateful for it, because sometimes a movie comes along that doesn’t just entertain you. It understands you, and In Waves understood me in ways I never could have expected.
I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing my mom. I don’t think there will ever be a day when I don’t wish I could call her, tell her about something exciting that happened, or share another memory with her. But I also know that every dream I accomplish, every adventure I take, and every moment I spend doing something I love carries a little piece of her with me.
Watching In Waves reminded me that the ocean doesn’t stop moving because we’ve lost someone. The waves keep coming, the tides keep changing, and life continues even when a part of us wishes the entire world would stand still. Maybe that’s what learning to live with grief really means: not leaving the people we’ve lost behind, but finding new ways to carry them forward.
Grief doesn’t end. Love doesn’t disappear. And the waves never stop coming. But somehow, we learn to keep swimming.
In Waves arrives in select theaters on November 27, 2026, before making its Netflix debut on December 11, 2026.
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