A decently directed true story family drama

Rating: 7/10 (4 June 2013)

There isn't much to be said about the plot in this movie, because, mainly, there is none. Which is, of course, to be expected. The main event here is the devastating natural disaster which we all, sadly, still remember, especially all the countless families that were affected by it, either by losing their loved ones or participating in it themselves, which has without doubt changed their lives forever. This is a story about one such family.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was, in fact, one of the worst natural disasters in the recorded history, killing over 230,000 people. I remember watching the TV reports, I still feel shiver just thinking about it. I guess I cannot even begin to imagine what horrors families like this went through during the fore-mentioned events. And I am quite sure no movie can ever express those horrors thoroughly enough.
I think this movie was done cleverly and with much precaution. The tsunami aftermath is still a very delicate subject, and there are a lot of people that witnessed this nature's act of destruction one way or another, so the filmmakers obviously didn't want to make it too realistic and documentary, instead they tended to focus on a single family's struggle for survival, with just the right amount of drama. The TV reports that I recall of were much more horrifying than the movie, but I guess it is better without too many explicit scenes.
Speaking of explicitness, there is a small detail that I can't see the relevance of - showing Naomi Watts' naked breasts in a few scenes of the movie - but I guess the filmmakers had their reasons for this.
The definitely most terrifying scenes in the movie were when and right after the wave struck, which was quite a good impression of nature's devastating whims. The effects in the movie were quite satisfactory. Though I must say I expected a longer introduction before the actual strike scene, i.e. some shots of the water recession. Not that it is of much relevance anyway, I just think it would have been a nice touch.
To sum it up, there are some things that could have been done differently in this movie, nevertheless, it is a good, professionally directed, natural disaster movie, with good cast and some nice special effects, plentiful of drama, all in all qualities that make it's watching worthwhile.