Ewan McGregor produces a sledgehammer performance as a father floundering in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami in an intelligent drama by the makers of The Orphanage
Despair, pain, panic and hope fight for supremacy in this outstandingly made and heartwrenching film, based on the true-life story of a Spanish family who went on a Christmas holiday in Thailand in 2004 and were caught up in the tsunami that hit south-east Asia, killing 230,000 people. With simplicity and conviction, it manages to be something other than a conventional disaster movie. The tsunami sequence itself is a masterly piece of film-making – and as for what follows, I have to admit to being blindsided by its real emotional power. This film is of course vulnerable to charges of manipulation, and of magnifying the western-tourist experience at the expense of the indigenous communities who lost everything. But in the end I found honesty and compassion in The Impossible.
Despair, pain, panic and hope fight for supremacy in this outstandingly made and heartwrenching film, based on the true-life story of a Spanish family who went on a Christmas holiday in Thailand in 2004 and were caught up in the tsunami that hit south-east Asia, killing 230,000 people. With simplicity and conviction, it manages to be something other than a conventional disaster movie. The tsunami sequence itself is a masterly piece of film-making – and as for what follows, I have to admit to being blindsided by its real emotional power. This film is of course vulnerable to charges of manipulation, and of magnifying the western-tourist experience at the expense of the indigenous communities who lost everything. But in the end I found honesty and compassion in The Impossible.
- 12/28/2012
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
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