The Impossible

The Impossible

If you have a fear of water, tsunamis or dying on vacation this is not your movie. It’s a true story of unimaginable destruction and the insurmountable will to survive. This family was vacationing at the Thai seacoast for a Christmas holiday. On December 26, 2004 a powerful earthquake set off a killer tsunami. The scene in the movie is terrifying. You sensed the terror of the vacationers as a towering wall of brown water crushed everything in its path. One of the sons was thrown into the pool like a rag doll. Naomi Watts crashes through a glass pane and is caught in an underwater whirlpool.

The story is heroic. The family is swept away and separated. Two boys go with their father, Ewan McGregor, and the other son with Naomi Watts. For the rest of the movie they struggle to reunite. Their ordeals are horrendous. Every parent hopes they would have the courage do the same thing for their family.

Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts are excellent actors. However, I think their roles in this movie are too narrow and lack range for a great performance. This is almost like a Passion play; lots of suffering and lots of love. I do not see how Naomi Watts is nominated for best actress. Her performance cannot compare to Jennifer Lawrence or Jessica Chastain for example. Those roles were rich and complex.

This film is basically a documentary made into a movie. It should have stayed a documentary. The tsunami killed 230,000 people in three countries. Compared to this cataclysm their story is just an ember in a wild fire. There wasn't even a post script at the end of the movie as a testimony to the dead; only a picture of the real family who survived the Impossible. We pray there were others.

joe