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The tsunami that devastated the Pacific Basin in the winter of 2004 remains one of the worst natural disasters in history, and although I assumed its climax as shown in Clint Eastwood’s film “Hereafter” (2010) would never be surpassed, that was before I’d seen this new “The Impossible.” Here is a searing film of human tragedy.
My wife and I were in London in 2004 when the disaster struck, and later we sat mesmerized in Biarritz, watching the news on TV. Again and again, the towering wall of water looming from the sea, tossing trucks, buses and its helpless victims aside. Surely this was a blow from hell. Those in Eastwood’s film beheld it from afar on home video. In Juan Antonio Bayona’s film, they seem lost in it, engulfed by it, damned by it.
All is quiet at a peaceful resort beach in Thailand. Seconds later, victims are swept up like matchsticks. The film is dominated by human figures – a young British couple, Maria and Henry Bennet (Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor), and their three young sons, Lucas, Simon and Thomas (Tom Holland, Oaklee Pendergast and Samuel Joslin). All five fear they will never see their loved ones again.
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‘The Impossible’ RATED: PG-13 (for intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity) WHEN: Opens today WHERE: Century 14 Downtown, Century Rio 24 |
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In the earlier Eastwood film, characters seemed the victims of cruel destiny, singled out by a fate perhaps foretold. In the Bayona film, have they been doomed by destiny? Seated in a dark theater, my hand reached out for that of my wife. She and I had visited the same beach, and discussed returning with our children and grandchildren. An icy finger ran slowly down our spines.
Such a connection can be terrifying. What does it mean? We are the playthings of the gods. The film’s heroine, played by Watts, powerfully becomes a front-runner for an Academy Award. Its eldest young hero, Lucas (Holland), separated from all, seeks tirelessly for fellow family searchers.
Spoilers follow, although the trailer and TV commercials reveal many of them. I’m happy I was blind-sided by the story. We meet the Bennets aboard a flight beginning their family holiday in Khao Lak, Thailand. We almost feel, rather than hear, a deeply alarming shift in the atmosphere. Something is fundamentally wrong here. We see the tsunami from the tourists’ point of view.
There is a shift in the universe, leaving behind a dazed group whose world is a jumble of destruction. They wander through the wreckage.
Maria is terrifyingly knocked through a glass wall, and realizes she can see her son Lucas’ tiny head and body struggling to stay afloat in the surging flood waters. With indomitable strength and courage, she clings to debris and they find themselves in an makeshift hospital that seems to have been somehow cobbled together. She is a medical doctor and applies emergency first aid to herself because she is the most injured.
Henry, tough and plucky, screams out the names of his two younger sons and loads them onto a truck bound for higher ground. The geographical layout miraculously seems halfway familiar to us after dozens of hours of cable news. The film’s most dramatic sequences focus on Lucas, assigning himself the role of his mother’s lifeguard and protector, and again now, at another holiday season, this film becomes a powerful story of a family’s cohesive strength.
Here is one of the best films of the year.
