Netflix’s Caught by a Wave – Are Italians Too Nice?

So far, Poland is far ahead of the rest of the European nations when it comes to the content that it produces under the Netflix banner. They gave us Squared Love, a bonkers romantic comedy/family melodrama/journalism thriller that was compulsively watchable. Other nations, such as Italy, have been sadly lagging behind and aren’t nearly as ambitious when it comes to the sort of films that they aim to produce. Caught by a Wave is one of those unambitious products that follows a template set by films like Love Story and The Other Side of the Mountain. Wanting a mix of perversity and searing melodrama, it ended up being dopey and soporific.

The film was all about Sara (Camarrone) and her struggles with muscular dystrophy. She is a young woman with a passion for sailing and she attends a summer camp at which which various counsellors teach her how to perfect her craft. She attracts the attention of Lorenzo (Christian) and the two fall deeply in love towards the end of summer. Her condition worsens and she has not told him that she lives with a life threatening condition. They continue having fun under the summer sun but Sara knows that their relationship can’t last.

Caught by a Wave is a cheesy, unbearably saccharine affair that never captures the pain of being young and unable to control your emotions. Both of our leads are unbearably nice and don’t treat their parents with cruelty. Teenagers are never this polite and unfortunately this civility didn’t serve as a veneer for some deep seated psychological issues and emotional repression. They also aren’t drawn as fully formed characters and we don’t really get to see their lives outside of sailing and muscular dystrophy. There are two botched family drama subplots that don’t go anywhere but there isn’t much time for them to be developed. Their lives as students also have very little texture. Sara is bored in class and her friends worry about her; it’s not terribly dramatic material. This is disappointing because most teenagers were wracked with nerves and approached their education and initiation into adulthood with a lot of hesitation. These two do it with a shrug and an impish smile or two.

In the end, not every film is going to feature people who are so hard to support. This film is aiming for mass appeal so it makes sense to have two bland drips at the centre of the story. In order to offset their dullness, you need to have colourful supporting characters who are complex and occasionally detestable. Their parents should have been vicious and overbearing or their friends should have been Regina George-type bullies. There just isn’t enough going on for us to see this as a compelling drama. While this all may sound like being unappreciative of subtlety but feeling bored is not good either. Caught by a Wave slowly wears viewers down with how innocuous and forgettable it is, leaving them feeling hollow. 

The score also added to the feeling of artificiality. There was the typical parade of European pop songs, twinkly piano standards that aggressively encourage us to smile and sad electronica which is meant to be hip and depressing, all at once and has appeared in almost every other Netflix product that is targeted at teenagers. It begins to feel tired after have heard it so many times and there are many points where the upbeat music doesn’t jell with what we are being presented with on screen. Sara will be gritting her teeth as she tries to ignore the pain of having a cramp. At the same time, some Italian matinee idol will be crooning about beach parties and girls in bikinis. The cheerful lyrics and tone of the song were surely meant to be meaningfully juxtaposed with Sara’s intense pain. It feels like they simply wanted to stuff more songs onto the soundtrack and awkwardly slipped this one into a scene where it was not welcome. 

Meanwhile, not much could be said for the cinematography. It shouldn’t be that difficult to make a Sicilian seaside town look beautiful. There’s the sun, the sand, the crystal clear waters and the Vespas. These are all very photogenic aspects of this part of the world, but we’ve all seen them so often that they lost their novelty. Maybe this would have been thrilling and original stuff, back in the late 1940s, but it represents a baseline of competence now. Nobody put in the effort to move beyond the clichés and apart from the overcast skies, this might as well be the same Italy from Three Coins in the Fountain. Surely the art of cinematography should have evolved more in 67 years?

That feeling of blandness infuses every part of this production and it seemed like a group of very bored, jaded producers cooked this up. They made something that leaves the audience close to dozing off and that’s never a good sign. Somebody needed to bring in the team that wrote Squared Love. 

still courtesy of Netflix

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Zita Short

I am passionate about screwball comedies from the 1930s and certain actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I’ll aim to review new Netflix releases and write features, so expect a lot of romantic comedies and cult favourites.