A good film

Rating: 8/10 (10 April 2015)

Australian farmer Connor's three sons join the ANZAC forces at Gallipoli and never come back. His wife never recovers from their loss and, following her death, he makes her a promise to find them and bring them home. He meets obstacles at every turn before being helped by a Turkish officer who sees a way to atone for the wrongs done – and still being done – by all sides in an ongoing conflict.
Russell Crowe's first effort as a director bears the legend "Inspired by True Events". I imagine that this probably means that a single element – in this case, the one father who went looking for where his sons fell – is used as the central element in a fiction. This doesn't matter – Gallipoli happened, and this film presents a fair emotional view of its impact on individuals and on the country in which it happened.
There are a number of fairly discrete sections to the film: the Australian section is lyrical; the Gallipoli combat section is harrowing (and the fate of the sons, teased out through several flashbacks, very emotional); the Istanbul section (which comprises both the administrative blocks Connor encounters, as well as a developing relationship with a Turkish widow and her son) contains, for me, the emotional heart of the film, for it shows that, notwithstanding the heartbreak, Connor (and Ayshe and Orhan) can go forwards; the Gallipoli war graves search section is sobering and quietly devastating; and the final section where Connor is accompanied by Major Hasan is fairly standard action adventure stuff.
It is a measure of Crowe's achievement as a director, particularly a first-timer, that these disparate elements are all individually well handled, and the film as a whole hangs together coherently.
I suspect that this film may think of itself as important: it isn't, but it does tell a worthwhile story very well.