NervousPete wrote:
So, The Impossible.
(Spoiler free-ish)
It opens with a jet roaring in low over the ocean towards a distant paradisical shore. Coincidently, the speed of a tsunami crossing the ocean is the same as that of a commercial jet. As the film of one family's experiences during the Asian Tsunami unfold, countless little echoes both visual and aural occur. None of these are forced. They can be a simple as a bouncing ball or a scrap of paper, or a soft drink. Some events seem like a premonition, until realisation sets in that the scope of the disaster is so great that there's really no obvious difference in outcome between standing in two different places or being delayed by a trivial matter. The sea shrugs its shoulders and washes over with equal indifference. It makes a mockery of the Emmerich school of disaster where the hero turns a corridor and escapes the flaming debris, or through hard running reaches the rung of a helicopter. The disaster in The Impossible is literally out of the blue.
In the short time we get to know the family prior to the event, it really hits you how perfect a Christmas holiday was for these people. The warm thoughtfulness behind the resort staff's desire for each family to have a special time and the sheer beauty of the Thailand coastline makes the opening twenty minutes oddly effecting. Standard disaster movies generate an impatience prior to the cataclysm, but The Impossible allows the viewer to share a Christmas and Boxing Day morning. It seems all the more brutal, sudden and unfair when it all changes. The acting helps, naturally. Ewan McGregor is on top form as the father, warm, wry, thoughtful - as is Naomi Watts as the mother. They don't have character traits as such, they don't need them - nor do the children. The eldest son, Lucas, is a touch rebellious, but no more than the average kid in his very early teens. There's nothing soap-opera about them. They do not stand out as special or different. Unlike most disaster movies, there is no impending domestic crisis or event.
A word on the boy playing Lucas, Tom Holland. I can't think of a better child actor since Christian Bale in Empire of the Son. He's so incredibly natural and unforced and his emotional outbursts are perfectly done. He carries the movie, if it needed carrying. There is not one weak link in the acting.
The film is more about the immediate aftermath and the emotional trauma rather than a spectacle, spending much of its time in the wreckage and in the swamped, over-burdened hospitals of Thailand. The tsunami itself however is probably the most chillingly real spectacle since the tornadic long shots of The Wizard of Oz. There's nothing of the CGI about it. It is a tangible, brutal, wall of water. Rough, bubbling, racing ahead someplaces, confused and hesitant in others but surging forward with a horrible weight. It's filmed nearly entirely from ground level and the injuries it deals aren't skimped over. There's a lot of mangled debris under that slick surface.
But the majority of the film is about hanging on, about trying to combat helplessness, about hope and despair. There's a movement and rhythm and truth to the emotions of the holidaymakers in the wake that is as compelling - indeed more so - than any special effects sequence. Criticism has been thrown at the film by some critics for its focusing on Westerners abroad. But in watching the film you realise that their story needed to be told. Just seeing the logistics, the fraught native nurses trying to cope with the tide of casualties, the dazed expressions on the wandering victims faces. There's thousands upon thousands of them. The casualties didn't stop with those who died, just as the disaster didn't stop when the waters receded and the harm to the islanders hasn't stopped in the last eight years.
It's a hopeful film all the same. There's horror, but a lot of beauty and kindness. The people of Thailand come out wonderfully in it, and I guess it is they, as much as the scenery, that has made their coastline such a potent haven for tourists. It is a sad film, and masterful at managing (not manipulating) emotions. I cried three times at least. It is very well judged and has a graceful ending. There's nothing showy about it also. If there was one criticism I could level it would be that the strings in the score pile on too much during once scene, and that a more muted score would have benefited the film more. Still, this is one powerful reminder of the Boxing Day experience and definitely worth a watch. Might not be a film of the year but I'm damned if I can find a flaw in it.
Five out of five.
P.S: Positive Craster rating not necessarily a good thing in this one!
I agree entirely with this. I know there's loads of criticism about it not being about the entire event and focusing on a nice white family but I think that isn't the issue. And I think there has to be the practical element that if you spend a lot on a movie you need to get people to go see it. Having big (ish) name stars like Ewen MacGregor and Naomi Watts in it helps get people in through the door. It's the most powerful and emotional film I think I've ever seen at the cinema. If I'd seen it last year it would have been my film of the year. It's hard to say if it will manage to be my film of the year for this year... but it's going to be hard to top.
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