The Wave Review: When Protest Becomes Performance

Sebastián Lelio’s The Wave (2025, Chile) unfolds as a daring fusion of activism and musical spectacle. At its heart is Julia, a second-year music student whose voice becomes both instrument and rallying cry when her campus erupts in protest. Inspired by the real 2018 Chilean feminist occupations, this film transforms charged testimonies into choreographed revolt, blending song, chant, and dance across lecture halls and courtyards.

Lelio, known for his intimate dramas, here adopts a bold, collective canvas: crimson-masked students flood modernist corridors, banners aloft, demanding accountability for sexual misconduct.

The film’s tone oscillates between militant fervor and reflective self-awareness, employing fourth-wall breaches that question the power dynamics of storytelling itself. By marrying urgent social critique with rhythmic energy, The Wave stakes its claim as a political musical unlike any in recent memory—a work where protest becomes performance and every chorus reinforces conviction.

From Voice to Uprising

Julia’s journey begins in Santiago’s working-class suburbs, where evenings at a family-run minimart punctuate her vocal training. Her auditionary struggles in choir mirror deeper anxieties about speaking truth to power. When student activists drape the main courtyard in a banner proclaiming “THIS UNIVERSITY GRANTS DEGREES TO RAPISTS,” Julia is swept into a movement far larger than her personal ambitions.

Volunteering to gather testimonies, she uncovers her own traumatic encounter with Max, a teaching assistant whose memory-clouded advances challenge the movement’s solidarity. Here, collective protest collides with individual pain: unity demands shared purpose even as each voice carries its own scars. Internal rifts emerge between those advocating negotiated reform and radicals who reject all compromise—and male allies driven by guilt vie for genuine inclusion.

A thundering centerpiece sees the occupied university transformed into an arena of “Universal Flood”-style choreography, bodies in unison shattering institutional calm. Julia’s testimony, woven into song, crystallizes the students’ cause—and yet as cameras whirl and authorities bear down, the film reminds us that visibility begets backlash. The tension between institutional inertia and radical action, between public spectacle and private healing, animates every frame.

Directorial Choreography and Portraiture

Lelio’s staging marries theatrical boldness with cinematic fluidity: tracking shots glide alongside dancers, cranes lift over chanting crowds, and sudden cuts pierce the veneer of unity. Fourth-wall intrusions—students confronting the director within the frame—underscore the uneasy authority of the storyteller. This meta-awareness prevents the film from descending into unchecked didacticism, even as it remains earnestly committed to its cause.

In her debut, Daniela López inhabits Julia with a poised vulnerability. Early scenes capture her tentative vocal runs; later, her posture shifts, shoulders squared in collective song. Flashbacks to the nightclub encounter are rendered in strobe and low light, the same visual palette returning in protest sequences to link personal trauma with mass mobilization.

Ensemble moments brim with kinetic tension: female students in crimson balaclavas execute Ryan Heffington-inspired choreography that oscillates between ritual and riot. Faculty members, police officers and hesitant male students provide foil: their stilted, speech-driven interludes contrast sharply with the film’s musical violence. Secondary characters embody ideological schisms—some call for dialogue with the patriarchal establishment, others champion uncompromising rupture—illuminating the challenges of collective resistance.

Soundscape & Stagecraft

Matthew Herbert’s soundtrack, crafted with seventeen Chilean composers, pulses with uneven brilliance: some numbers soar on percussive insistence, while others falter under the weight of overt slogans. Chanting sequences lend raw immediacy, yet melodic cohesion remains elusive when lyrics prioritize political urgency over tunefulness.

Choreography anchors each protest’s emotional core. The haka-inspired opening sequence harnesses communal rhythm, while the balaclava-clad “warrior” tableau channels pent-up fury through angular group movements. These staged eruptions punctuate a visual rhythm sustained by Benjamín Echazarreta’s saturated palette: ocean blues recede as protest reds surge. Crane and slow-creep shots linger on determined faces, then retreat to capture the mass’s sweeping geometry.

Editing alternates rapid intercuts of testimony montages with extended long takes in the auditorium, reflecting the ebb and flow of collective resolve. Costume design reinforces social divides: Julia’s subtle, working-class wardrobe gives way to the stark uniformity of protest garb, while academic interiors—wood-panelled halls and marble staircases—become arenas for spectacle. Production design marshals minimalism and grandeur in equal measure, ensuring each set piece resonates with both theatrical flair and political weight.

Echoes Beyond the Finale

The Wave tests the limits of cinematic protest: where its musical ambition soars, its rhetorical intensity occasionally overwhelms. As a landmark in Lelio’s filmography, it signals a willingness to innovate beyond intimate drama, even while its didactic edges remind us that art and activism can clash as readily as they converge.

The film’s most enduring impression is its insistence on performance as political act—each liberated chorus challenges viewers to confront the costs of silence. In marrying uncompromising choreography with urgent testimony, The Wave demands to be felt as much as it is heard, leaving a reverberation that outlives its final note. The Wave premiered on May 16, 2025, in the Cannes Premiere section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Full Credits

Director: Sebastián Lelio

Writers: Sebastián Lelio, Manuela Infante, Josefina Fernández, Paloma Salas

Producers: Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Rocío Jadue, Sebastián Lelio

Cast: Daniela López, Avril Aurora, Lola Bravo, Paulina Cortés, Néstor Cantillana, Mariana Loyola, Susana Hidalgo, Luis Dubó, Amparo Noguera, Amalia Kassai, Florencia Berner, Enzo Ferrada

Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Benjamín Echazarreta

Editor: Soledad Salfate

Composer: Matthew Herbert