Scary and moving true story of a family caught in the 2004 tsunami that redrew the map around the Indian Ocean. It shows the shocking brutality of the event itself, but the focus is on what happens to the family when they are split up and wounded. It could so easily have been corny, but there were several moments that brought me to tears. It's gruelling and distressing to see so much human pain on such an epic scale.
Naomi Watts is highly convincing as the badly injured mother, trying to keep going for the sake of her son and the family members she believes lost. Ewan McGregor is less so as the father, although he's much better here than when he was being Obi-Wan Kenobi.
The film has been criticised for focusing on the "tourist experience" of the tsunami, rather than on how the event affected local people. That seems inevitable, somehow, but at its centre The Impossible celebrates the universal value of life and portrays all of the victims with compassion. For a "disaster film", there’s a refreshing absence of cliché and sensationalism.
No comments:
Post a Comment