by Tim Gordon
In Waves finds director Phuong Mai Nguyen transforming AJ Dungo’s graphic novel into a beautifully animated coming-of-age story about first love, friendship, grief, and the healing power of the ocean. Premiering at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, the tender film follows two young people whose brief time together permanently changes the course of their lives.
A Chance Encounter Changes Everything
AJ (Will Sharpe) is a withdrawn, shy artist and avid skateboarder who spends most of his time with his best friend, Franz.
One night, Franz drags him to a school dance, where AJ has a chance encounter with Kristen (Stephanie Hsu). For AJ, it is practically love at first sight.
He soon discovers that Kristen lives next door, and after some innocent flirting, she invites him to the beach to join her favorite activity: surfing.
There is just one problem.
AJ is terrified of the water.
Despite his aquaphobia, Kristen convinces him to meet her at the ocean, beginning a relationship that gradually pushes AJ beyond the boundaries he has created for himself.
In Waves Turns the Ocean Into Something Sacred
The ocean becomes much more than a backdrop for their romance.
Tracing the Hawaiian origins and traditions surrounding surfing, In Waves presents water as something spiritual and deeply connected to the people who embrace it. For Kristen, surfing offers freedom and strength in a life increasingly defined by circumstances she cannot control.
For AJ, the water represents fear.
That contrast gives In Waves one of its most compelling themes. Kristen teaches AJ to enter the very place that frightens him, while AJ becomes determined to stand beside Kristen as she confronts something far more terrifying.
As their friendship deepens into love, AJ discovers that Kristen has cancer and realizes how successfully she has hidden the extent of her pain from him.
Kristen Refuses to Be Defined by Cancer
As Kristen’s illness becomes more complicated, AJ digs in, determined to make whatever time they have together special.
But Kristen refuses to become someone else’s tragedy.
She does not want AJ to pity her, place his life on hold, or sacrifice opportunities simply because she is sick. That creates one of the relationship’s most meaningful conflicts when AJ turns down a job opportunity in New York and tells Kristen that the company was not interested in him.
When she discovers the truth, she is furious.
His decision comes from love, but Kristen recognizes something AJ initially cannot: loving her does not give him permission to make her illness the organizing principle of his own life.
That tension allows In Waves to explore devotion without romanticizing self-sacrifice.
Love During an Uncertain Future
Kristen’s cancer moves in and out of remission, creating an uncertainty that hangs over their relationship even during its happiest moments.
AJ wants desperately to believe there will always be more time.
Kristen understands that there may not be.
Rather than allowing that reality to consume them, the two find joy in the moments they still possess. Their relationship unfolds through surfing, art, conversation, laughter, and the ordinary experiences that become extraordinary precisely because their future together is uncertain.
The movie’s restraint is important. Kristen is never reduced to her diagnosis, and AJ’s relationship with her becomes about far more than preparing for loss.
She is the person who teaches him how to live beyond his fears.
Art Becomes a Promise
Eventually, Kristen asks AJ to make her a promise.
She wants him to use his artistic talent to document their story.
AJ tearfully agrees.
That request provides the emotional bridge between the film’s love story and the work that inspired it. In Waves adapts AJ Dungo’s graphic novel, transforming his deeply personal memories into animation while preserving the intimacy at the heart of his story.
Art becomes an act of remembrance.
AJ cannot control Kristen’s illness or determine how much time they will have together. What he can do is preserve what that time meant.
For In Waves, that idea becomes the film’s emotional heartbeat: some relationships endure not because they last forever, but because of what they leave behind.
Phuong Mai Nguyen Brings the Graphic Novel to Life
This beautiful animated feature debut from director Phuong Mai Nguyen finds an appropriately intimate visual language for Dungo’s story.
Nguyen also incorporates Hawaiian mythology and surfing history into the narrative, connecting AJ and Kristen’s relationship to something larger than themselves. The ocean carries history, spirituality, danger, freedom, and renewal throughout the film.
Most importantly, those elements complement rather than overwhelm the central relationship.
Will Sharpe and Stephanie Hsu bring warmth and vulnerability to AJ and Kristen, while the animation gives their story a dreamlike quality appropriate for memories being revisited years later.
The result feels deeply personal because it is.
In Waves: Final Verdict
In Waves is ultimately about the people who enter our lives for what may seem like far too little time yet leave an imprint that never disappears.
Phuong Mai Nguyen does a wonderful job adapting AJ Dungo’s graphic novel and preserving the enduring love for Kristen at its center. The film’s exploration of Hawaiian surfing culture and mythology adds another dimension to a story already rich with ideas about fear, mortality, memory, and finding the courage to move forward.
There is sadness here, certainly, but In Waves refuses to define Kristen solely through loss. Her relationship with AJ is filled with humor, frustration, discovery, affection, and the stubborn desire to live while there is still life to be lived.
Ultimately, In Waves finds a tender and emotionally satisfying animated adaptation about a life-defining love and the promise to ensure that its story will continue long after the final wave reaches shore.
In Waves premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 14, 2026, before debuting on Netflix on December 11, 2026.
Grade: B
