The real disaster proceeds the wave

Rating: 6/10 (1 June 2016)

We've had our share of "torture porn." Now, we've evidently entered the age of "disaster/survival porn." And, although the latter is far more hopeful, less sadistic, and infinitely better Oscar bait (you're welcome, Leo), they have more in common than you'd think. And J.A. Bayona's The Impossible is all we need by way of explanation: a humbling, powerful story of tragedy and resilience transmuted into such tastelessly exploitative Hollywood schlock that the real feeling of survival comes from making it all the way through to the end credits.
The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was particularly horrific insofar as it was so unexpected, but it's a quality rarely evident in Bayona's account of it. Things start promising, as the initial scenes of inane banter of our posh family on Christmas vacation in Thailand are inoffensively credible, pleasant with just the right whiff of foreboding. Just when we start to let our guard down, we're blindsided by a tsunami that's as terrifyingly stunning a cinematic set piece as we could imagine. In terms of disaster spectacle, The Impossible excels, blending flawless CGI and practical effects to capture the horror of the wall of water and devastation it unleashed in a gruesomely engrossing fashion, shot so abruptly and breathlessly that it's wholly immersive, and bereft of distracting Hollywood affectations. The terror of the tsunami contrasting with the beauty of the panoramic Thailand scenery is poignant in itself, as the serenity of the beachside landscapes are strewn with fastidiously recreated apocalyptic wreckage and debris. Taken as a short film chronicling the experience of the tsunami itself, The Impossible is excellent.
But this isn't enough. At the risk of clumsy non-sequitur, the only thing dancing through my head as The Impossible unfolded was Michael Caine in The Prestige musing "It isn't enough to make something vanish; you have to bring it back," and how inappropriate such a Hollywood anthem can feel superimposed onto real tragedy. Granted, the real life story of the Álvarez/Belón family surviving and reuniting throughout the disaster is astonishing and inspiring, but it's done a disservice here, warped by dubious Hollywood social politics and gruesome emotional manhandling. Focusing on a single privileged white family over all the Thai locals (let alone the asinine recasting of the original Spanish source family) who were largely more ravaged and destroyed by the tsunami sits uncomfortably, and makes the film's increasingly broad scrabbling for a 'feel-good ending' distressingly tone-deaf.
"Based on a true story" nullifies spoilers, so we know all five members of the central family are going to survive, and Bayona contriving cumbersome sequences of 'how will they find each other?!?' dramatic irony amidst a backdrop of all the broken families, Thai and tourist alike, who haven't been so lucky, grates increasingly. Fernando Velázquez's cloying musical score only makes it worse. There is some solace in some of the hopeful beats amidst the refugee medical evacuation procedure which breathe more genuinely (it's nigh impossible - ha - to repress a deluge of smiles witnessing Tom Holland reuniting separated survivor families in the hospital). Still, Bayona climaxing with a sequence of Naomi Watts' protagonist reliving a flashback fetishizing each individual debris wound while caught in the tsunami before clawing her way up to the surface in agonizing slow-mo, is so idiotically offensive and grossly manipulative that we have to continually remind ourselves that it's through no fault of Watts' work or her real-life equivalent that we'd almost rather she just stay under the water here.
The cast, to their credit, are superbly committed to conveying the agony of their nightmarish scenario, even if most of their dialogue is calling out each other's names. Watts conveys the weight of her torment remarkably convincingly, while wisely weaving in subtle notes of irritable humour throughout, which helps stave off us getting tired of her howling and whimpering in pain for an hour and a half straight (she could have given a useful note or two to Leo in The Revenant in this regard). Ewan McGregor is as charismatic as ever, but he shoulders the worst of the film's melodramatic suffering and operatic screaming, and grows tiresome very quickly, particularly when his character makes the jaw-dropping decision to abandon two of his young sons to look for his wife and son #3. As such, it's 'soon- to-be-Spider-Man' Tom Holland who walks away with the show here. Embodying battered, weary resilience stupendously in his slight, springy frame, whether he's belligerently yelling at his mother to stop vomiting blood or breaking into an irrepressible grin at seeing other families reunited, there's never a moment he's not viscerally believable. He's the spark of life and hope that keeps the film afloat, and we miss him desperately when he's not on screen.
While The Impossible has its moments, thanks largely to the power of its big- budget tsunami recreation and strong work from Watts and Holland, it's mostly useful as an illustration of Hollywood's general inability to appropriately do justice to events of large scale tragedy and suffering beyond the sensory onslaught of the spectacle itself. 2009's Tsunami: Caught On Camera tells the same story through compiled found footage and interviews with survivors, and captures the devastation and inspiration of the disaster and those who survived it in a far more honest fashion. Unless you're a CGI buff, or keen fan of the cast (or just scoping out a pre-Civil War Spider-Man), see that instead.
-6/10