The Impossible (2012 film)

Enrique López Lavigne

Tom Holland

Hayden Styles

***The Impossible*** (Spanish: ***Lo Imposible***) is a 2012 English-language Spanish disaster drama film directed by J. A. Bayona and written by Sergio G. Sánchez. It is based on the experience of María Belón and her family in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The cast includes Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, and Hayden Styles.

The film received positive reviews from critics for its direction and its acting, especially for Watts who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role.

## Plot

Henry Bennett (Ewan McGregor), his wife Maria (Naomi Watts), and their three sons Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Hayden Styles), and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) go on a Christmas holiday in 2004 to Khao Lak, Thailand. Arriving on Christmas Eve, they settle in and begin to enjoy the brand new Orchid Beach Resort. Two days later on Boxing Day, the massive 2004 tsunami inundates the area.

Maria and Lucas eventually emerge from the swirling water and find one another, with Maria having sustained serious injuries to her leg and chest. They help a young boy, Daniel, from the wreckage and are soon found by locals who transfer them to a local hospital in the city of Takua Pa. Daniel is separated from them during the journey. At the hospital, Maria encourages Lucas to help others find their family members while she goes into surgery for her chest injuries.
Meanwhile, Henry, Thomas and Simon have also survived and are together. Henry leaves the two boys with another family who head to the mountains for safe shelter while he stays behind to search for Maria and Lucas. While out looking, injured and alone, he is picked up by a passer-by and driven to a nearby bus shelter to wait out with other survivors. Communication facilities are scarce but eventually a tourist named Karl (Sönke Möhring), who has also been separated from his family, lends Henry his cell phone
 to contact his relatives. Henry promises Maria's father he will look everywhere for his family and that he will find them. Karl tells the group his wife had left him a note confirming they were at the beach, their location when the wave hit. He volunteers to accompany Henry to look for Maria and Lucas and his own family, too.

While Maria is in surgery, her medical chart is mixed-up with another patient who has died. Lucas returns to find his mother's bed empty and is then taken to a tent where children without families are kept safe. The mistake is discovered when Lucas cannot identify any of the dead woman's jewelry and he is subsequently reunited with his mother who has been moved to a private room in the ICU. In the hospital while he waits, Lucas finds Daniel who has been reunited with his father.

Henry and Karl search for their families in various places before they arrive at the hospital where Henry is given five minutes to look. Karl gives him a piece of paper with his family members names on. The vehicle carrying Thomas and Simon also stops outside the hospital and the boys get off so Simon can urinate. From a distance, Lucas recognizes his father and while searching him out in the chaotic crowd outside, Lucas' siblings spot him and they reunite. Henry finds the three of them together. He learns that Maria is in the hospital ready to undergo more surgery for her leg, which she survives. Flashbacks reveal how she came to be badly injured and how she surfaced the water. While in surgery, Lucas tells his father he has something really important to tell Maria.

The following day, the family boards an ambulance airplane to Singapore so Maria may receive further medical treatment, arranged by their insurance company. On the plane, Lucas tells his mother he knows Daniel is safe. Maria looks out the window at the chaos left behind.

## Cast

* Naomi Watts as Maria Bennett, a doctor and the mother of the Bennett family.
* Ewan McGregor as Henry Bennett, the father of the Bennett family.
* Tom Holland as Lucas Bennett, the 12-year-old[4] son.
* Hayden Styles as Thomas Bennett, the seven-and-a-half-year-old son.
* Oaklee Pendergast as Simon Bennett, the five-year-old son.
* Marta Etura as Simone
* Sönke Möhring as Karl Schweber, a German man trying to find his wife and daughter. He joins Henry to find their families.
* Geraldine Chaplin as the Old Woman
* Ploy Jindachote as the Caregiver
* Jomjaoi Sae-Limh as the Red Cross Nurse
* Nicola Harrison as the Woman in charge of Simon and Thomas

## Production

The film was a co-production of Spanish film companies Apaches Entertainment and Telecinco Cinema, and employed much of the crew from *The Orphanage*, including the director, writer, production manager, cinematographer, composer, and editor. Principal photography began 23 August 2011, in Alicante, Spain, and continued in October in Thailand.

Director Juan Antonio Bayona decided not to specify the nationalities of the main characters in order to create a universal film in which nationalities were irrelevant to the plot.
The tsunami was recreated with a mixture of digital effects and real water surges filmed in slow motion created in a water tank in Spain using miniatures that were destroyed by a huge wave. Bayona committed to working with real water rather than a computer-generated wave because he wanted the story to be authentic. This meant Watts and Holland spent five weeks filming physically and psychologically demanding scenes in a massive water tank. 16-year-old Holland later described it as a "scary environment ...You can imagine how tiring and brutal that was."

*The Impossible* is the second collaboration between Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor after appearing together in the 2005 film *Stay*.

## Release

Warner Bros. released the film in Spain on 11 October 2012. The United States distribution rights were pre-bought by Summit Entertainment. A teaser trailer was released on 26 December 2011. After a full-length English language trailer was released on 20 August 2012, a United States release date of 21 December 2012 was confirmed by Summit. It was released on 11 October 2012 in Spain and in North America on 21 December 2012, by Summit Entertainment. It was released in Ireland and the United Kingdom on 1 January 2013. The film was made available by Summit Entertainment through a website streaming the film to members of SAG-AFTRA for consideration of the SAG awards.

It was released on DVD/Blu-ray in the US and Canada on Tuesday, 23 April 2013, with a European release 13 May 2013.

## Box Office

*The Impossible* was a box office success. In Spain the film was released on 11 October 2012, and opened in 638 cinemas, grossing $11,569,306 on its opening weekend, ranking No. 1 with a per-cinema average of $18,134, the highest-grossing opening weekend for a film in Spain. On its second weekend the film remained at No. 1 and grossed $9,016,065 with a per-cinema average of $14,022. On its third weekend it remained at No. 1 and made $5,768,184 with a per-cinema average of $9,098. The film ended up earning $54,536,668 at the Spanish box office and $180,274,123 worldwide, compared with its estimated $45 million production budget.