Caught by a Wave

Summer in Sicily. Sara and Lorenzo meet at a sailing camp and grow close fast. What she tells nobody is that she has a condition slowly taking her muscles, and that her time is limited. Massimiliano Camaiti directed; the film went out as one of Netflix's Italian youth productions. The story sits inside the familiar template of the sick-teenager romance and never tries to escape it: the hidden diagnosis, the happy stretch by the sea, the illness breaking things up. The sailing is its most concrete element. The boat scenes were shot during real races, and the loss of strength in her body is set directly against the physical demand of the sport. The Sicilian landscape works as another character; the cinematography edges toward a tourism poster and the film knows it. The young leads carry the weight, but the script leaves them little room. Who it is for: viewers who like summer romance and illness drama together. Who it is not for: anyone put off by emotional manipulation; the film aims openly at the reaction it wants.