Horrifying depiction of a tragic event

Rating: 7/10 (12 January 2013)

A moment of guilt sunk in as I was watching Juan Antonio Bayona's "The Impossible". It's during the holiday scenes in the first five or so minutes of the film, where the tourists were happily lighting floating lanterns on the beach the night before Christmas '04. The calm before the storm.
How haunting to remember, the happy faces of the tourists/couples as they bustle about partying and celebrating on the coasts of Thailand. How haunting to know that it would be one of their final nights, as I was, days before the horrific event, treading one of the very beaches struck hard by the waves. It's moments like that you ask yourself, do you truly have a life well-spent? Because it could be gone tomorrow, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Yes, the trailers do indeed spoil the movie, but if you think about it, it doesn't matter if you've seen the trailer or not. We all saw the news footage during and after the disaster, and the images hauntingly burned in our brains as a memento of the merciless fury of mother nature.
But Bayona does something else. The waves devastate the landscape, turning a land of pure beauty into a ruined wasteland beyond comprehension. Trees tumble, buildings are smashed, people are swept away and knocked around within the waves and debris. If that sounds horrific enough, Bayona doesn't hold back and we are treated to his recreation those cringing moments to gripping effect. Naomi Watts' blood-curdling scream as she clings on to dear life amidst raging waters and drifting debris sums the experience up. This scene makes the one in Clint Eastwood's "Hereafter" look like CliffNotes.
After the tsunami comes another harrowing look at the aftermath. The survivors are meandering around, shell-shocked by the devastation and loss. The Thai hospitals are thrown into chaos as the hallways and rooms overflow with patients and corpses. These scenes are done tremendously well.
The film's focus, however, is on a wealthy British family separated during the disaster. The mother (Watts) is swept away along with the eldest son (Tom Holland), and the father (Ewan McGregor) with the younger two sons. Each side fears the other is done for. It is a testament to their will and determination that all five manage to pull through to ultimately survive this ordeal. Holland and McGregor are very effective in their roles, but Watts gives the best performance, as a woman who has just seen the worst first-hand and still is determined to keep going.
Yes, there are genre conventions. The real family which survived this have all been turned British for this film. Disaster genre conventions, especially fateful meetings and misses, are done to death in a lot of movies in a cheap attempt to exploit the emotion out of the audience. In this movie it's no exception, and the final reunion of the family, where they find each other, is frankly, ham-fistedly directed but well-acted. Aside from that minor gripe, the point is, Bayona uses this family's story as a central point to revisit the devastation of the tsunami aftermath. And he succeeds effortlessly at that.
Three years ago, I saw this Chinese movie called "Aftershock" about the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake in China and it's ripples across a family. That movie used its effects horrifyingly well also, as per this one which ratchets up the cringe-factor up to 11. The PG-13 rating has never been more justified in recent times, with injury-related gore/nudity prevalent throughout the film to show the masses what's real. If you ever wondered if you spent enough time with your loved ones, this film will give you a reminder.
A VERY GOOD disaster film.