Very emotional, great fatherhood movie

Rating: 7/10 (26 March 2015)

Four years after the Battle of Gallipoli and after losing his wife, Joshua Connor leaves Australia for Turkey to look for his sons, soldiers in the battle. Arriving in Istanbul a kid Orhan brings him to a hotel managed by his mother Ayshe. Meanwhile in Gallipoli Major Hasan Bey and his aide Sergeant Jemal arrives at a request of the British War Graves Unit to help them locate their fallen. The British denies Joshua a permit to Gallipoli. Joshua gets close to Orhan, until one day Ayshe tells her how to get to Gallipoli without permit. Detained at arrival in Gallipoli, Joshua doesn't go back to Istanbul but instead stays on the beach. The ranking officer Lt.Col. Hughes then welcomes Joshua to search for his sons in the field. On an excavation day Hasan walks with Joshua retelling the chronology of a battle night there. It's revealed that Joshua three sons Art, Ed, and Henry are gunned down there. Finding a skull shot at the back of the head, a soldier provoke Joshua into attacking Hasan. Hasan instead then reveal an information that Art may still be alive and was taken prisoner to Istanbul. Back in Istanbul Joshua meets a dead end for more information but he gets closer to Ayshe and Orhan.
Ayshe tells a local fortune telling game of coffee to Joshua, but when the game is done she refuses to tell the coffee's premonitions about him. Joshua steps in to help Ayshe as her husband's brother Omer, who eagerly asks her hand in marriage, starts hitting her. Omer tries to exact revenge but Jemal comes for Joshua. Hasan tells an info that Art maybe taken to Afyon. That night Joshua dreams of Art and knows he's still alive. The British army is determined to send Joshua back home. So Joshua evades capture and joins Hasan and Jemal and the Turk Army to infiltrate to Afyon in the Anatolia. But the group is ambushed by the Greeks on the way. Jemal dies to protect Hasan and Joshua, who then run on horses. They come across a village where Joshua feels Art is, and finally finds him. Art refuses to go with him due to his guilt over his brothers' death. The Greeks have arrive and start to shell the village. Hasan bids them farewell. Art rushes to a hill top to show an escape path to Joshua. Joshua talks to him and Art follows him. Back at Istanbul Joshua finds Ayshe who isn't surprised about him coming back. She says it's in the coffee few weeks back.
The story builds up rather slowly, although with that strong opening sequence. But it nicely presents a solid story about fatherhood, guilt, believe, and redemption. For me it nicely captures a balanced depiction about both sides of the Battle of Gallipoli, the Turks and the ANZACS. The additional romance part nicely stands out without being just a sweetener in the movie. The finale also plays very nicely on emotions with quite a shocking revelation.
The drama feels nicely strong. The movie utilized the back and forth story flow very well in building the memory, character relationships and the common thread for the story. The use of a repeated magic carpet story element that doesn't seem to be relevant to the bigger picture, linked the scenes about Joshua and his sons very nicely.
The depiction of the war has nice enough dose for it. The war does seem intense and real enough although there seem to be more light than needed in the night time war scenes. One thing worth noted is that the choice of the lighting and coloration, especially for the day time scenes, and also the great job in location scouting made the movie feels very much authentic Turkish in it's locations, where instead the movie was shot predominantly in Australia.
The acting overall is surprisingly good in my opinion. Russell Crowe did his most convincing role of a calm Australian father here. His deeper involvement as a director probably drives him for it. Olga Kurylenko also acted out her parts nicely, speaking the Turkce language dialog lines quite convincingly, though I think only native Turk couldn't tell the difference if there's any flaw in the accentuation. The Turkisj cast o Cem Yilmaz and Yilmaz Erdogan also acted their parts nicely convincing. Erdogan can even make his role feels very much emotional.
My say for The Water Diviner (2014) is a score of 7 out of 10. A recommendation goes out as a half-yes from me. But if you're a drama enthusiast, I think this movie will be interesting for you because even I find this quite entertaining.