Completely misses the mark

Rating: 4/10 (6 August 2018)

To make a movie such as this that tackles the real life disaster of the 2004 tsunami is no small task. It took the lives of so many and even for those of us around the world that weren't there or were fortunate enough to not have any loved ones involved, it still never leaves you. I remember the devastation and disbelief of seeing it on the news just as I remember the day of the 9/11 attacks. Disasters like that are cemented in all of our consciousnesses for the rest of our lives.
It's a fantastic take on the sheer devastation and shock that the people present that day must've experienced. It felt so real in places that it felt I was watching a documentary rather than a movie. The way the tsunami itself was filmed was incredible as were the reactions of the family at the centre of it all.
However, none of this stops the movie from being dull. I understand that many will appreciate this movie because of what it is about and for being a realistic and honest depiction of it, but there's simply no entertainment value. There's no story, nothing to get invested in. The movie follows the same family of five from beginning to end which should have made it more impactful, but unfortunately, it didn't. Whilst the family's pain and shock was understandable and I could imagine the horror of being in that exact situation myself, I simply wasn't invested in them to the extent I should've been.
Personally, I think this movie would have been a hundred times better if it was told from the perspective of the locals of Khao Lak. Although there were many Thai characters involved in the movie, it would've been even more emotional for it to be told by them. Whilst the British family we followed were physically and mentally impacted by the disaster, the reality is they could jump on a plane at the end, go home and move on with their lives. It was the local people who had their entire lives destroyed and had to pick up the pieces. Why not tell us that story instead? It seems that the filmmakers felt the only way to tell and interesting or relatable story was to tell it from an English-speaking white family's perspective, which makes no sense to me.
I haven't seen any other movies based upon the 2004 tsunami, so perhaps there are already such movies out there that exist, but I still strongly believe this should have focused on the locals rather than a British family.
Furthermore, although the ending was as happy as it could have been it was very unrealistic and it would've added to the authenticity of the movie if it had a different ending.