Reviews

Having watched almost every episode of the UK show, I was really excited for this. The production value seemed like it would be really high with all the cameras catching naturalistic views of the births, and I loved a peek into the different lives and loves of the new parents in the UK show. It also, while I was pregnant, made me feel so much more confident in giving birth.

Before I go on, I want to make one thing clear: I had an induced labor, I got an epidural, and I ended up with a C-section. I am not some "natural mama" here to shame people for needing interventions or pain relief. That's not the point of this review.

I also have a background in healthcare, for what it's worth.

But...wow, this show really demonstrated the difference between US and UK approaches to birth.

In the UK show, the women very rarely used pain relief. They were rarely there to be induced, and ending with a C-section was super uncommon. In the US show, there was--in the very first episode--a woman who shows up already 4 cm dilated and the first thing out of the nurse's mouth is "let's start pitocin." Absolutely wild. Pitocin is not an inert substance. It comes with many risks and side effects. I have never met an OB or MFM who would just hang a pitocin IV the second a patient in spontaneous labor walks in the door.

The whole point of the show honestly seemed to be about making fun of the moms. Every episode (and yes, I watched ALL of them) was full of little doot-doot music every time a mother was in pain, complete with cuts to the nurses making mocking faces from the nurse's station. The nurses were constantly making fun of the patients to their faces, even. In episode 1, a woman repeats something she was told by her healthcare provider, and the nurse had the chutzpah to make fun of her. The editing also made it seem like the mom, who was innocently saying SOMETHING SHE'D BEEN TOLD BY A DOCTOR, was somehow an idiot for that.

In ep 1, there was also a woman who came in hoping for an epidural-free birth. The episode was literally just mocking her the entire time for trying to have a physiologic birth, edited to make her sounds of pain seem ridiculous, and cutting to scenes of the nurses making fun of her behind her back.

(Speaking of cut scenes, the editing was such that the camera kept jumping around to make the births seem "suspenseful" at all times. Like the director thought he was filming an action movie. It was jarring.)

Watching this show, I would hate to give birth at this hospital. It made me nervous for my own labor, that the nurses would be actively making fun of me at all times. I can't believe the nurses in this show are okay with themselves being portrayed like this to a national audience. And I feel so bad for the moms who will watch this and feel embarrassed for the very natural pain and heightened emotions they felt giving birth to their children.

What a truly horrible show. Ditch this and go watch the UK one, which is sweet and will make you feel a lot better about humanity.

I really liked this one! I went into it expecting one thing, but it turned into something very, very different. (Where the director chose to place the opening credits was a masterful cue.) I had been starting to feel bored by horrors and thrillers lately, as nothing seemed particularly new or groundbreaking...until this.

Is it ~cinema~? No. But it's so much fun, and it still has a lot to say about influencer culture and the social media era.

Cassandra Naud (who played CW) is so talented and definitely one to watch.

I just wish we learned more about CW's backstory. I don't think it's fair to want us to infer from her disfigurement that she was bullied by people like Madison in the past - that seems reductive. I would have liked more detail and nuance here.

I loved every second of this movie. It was hilarious but laser-focused on the social commentary at the same time. It would be impossible to watch this movie and just laugh all throughout-because when you turn off the tv you will find yourself thinking hard about the issues this movie brought up.

Also - the cinematography? Hoo boy. 10/10. The filters really helped contribute to this "out of place, out of time" feeling throughout the movie. It felt modern but not, our world but not.

All in all a great example of using science fiction to talk about real world issues through the lens of fiction.

To be fair...I did not finish this movie. At the halfway mark, I very much felt that I had gotten the point. Maybe it's because I started this after watching the Babies series on Netflix, which is so much more informative and nuanced. But this one just felt like the message of "love your baby, create safe spaces for them, allow them to play" over and over again. My initial kneejerk response was that I was not sure why we needed an entire hour-plus long movie to convey the point that children are precious and we need to foster a safe and developmentally appropriate environment for children.

THAT SAID.... After I initially wrote my review, I started thinking about this more. And ultimately I think this film has an important message that a lot of people don't realize. Maybe I'm just too enmeshed in discussions about gentle parenting and the negative effects of capitalism already, so the message felt repetitive to me...but it would not to someone else. And that alone made me change my rating.

I'll also add that the cinematography here is beautiful, and I really appreciated the focus on many different cultures and societies, and how it showed the commonalities between us all and the care and love we have for our children.

This was great, especially as disaster films go. Norwegians have really been hitting it out of the park in this genre (check out the sequel to this, The Quake - not as good, but still solid).

The movie has more focus on the characters than most disaster films. Only here it worked, whereas with other movies it usually just ruins the tension. The difference is that, in The Wave, they actually grow your interest in and commitment to the characters during the first bit of the movie. You know the disaster is coming, so the tension is already established, leaving more time to explore the character relationships. It meant that by the time we got to the main plot about the dad trying to rescue his wife and daughter, we actually cared.

I always figure 6 stars is the sweet spot for survival film IMDB scores. Are they great movies? Nah. Are they fun? Hell yes.

The movie definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat. I liked that they explored lots of different ways that people dealt with the apocalypse. The acting's mostly all right, although I remain confused about why Brazilian Morena Baccarin had a white son. Also, the diabetes rep is SO BAD. Why is the kid in need of insulin but taking a sugar tablet? That would make DKA worse. Or if he needs glucose, he definitely doesn't need an insulin shot, because he'd die quickly of hypoglycemia. This requires about 5 seconds of google research, which I guess was too much to ask.

But yeah, I had a great time, I've watched this twice in the past six months. Six stars sounds about right.

This show truly has it all: multiple characters going through some truly intense and life-changing experiences like...joining ISIS? It's so rare to find a thriller show that entertains and educates at the same time.

I will admit to being frustrated by the mom's near constant panic attacks for the first twenty minutes of the film. I was like, please just calm the fk down and take a xanax or something because good lord nothing I've seen so far merits all this hyperventilation. Movie gets a pass on that because it was explained later, but I almost quit just from how irritated I was. The middle part of the movie was amazing, I loved the twist, and it was well-paced. But by the end I was so bored of the same fight scene happening over and over, and quit with 20 minutes left of runtime.