January Movie #4: The Impossible

Starring:  Naomi Watts, Ewan Mcgregor
Run Time: 1 hour 54 minutes
Directed By: Juan Antonio Bayona

As I've mentioned before, it's Oscar season. Naomi Watts is up for Best Actress for this movie, which is what drew me to it. It's probably not one I'd see without the Oscar pull. The Impossible is probably a movie you've never heard of. It's not a mainstream release (although I did see it at AMC now that they have an "Independence" offering). I only heard of it because of the nominations. And I'm not one for disaster movies (they give me nightmares) but again, since this one is nominated, I opted to see it.

The Impossible takes place in Thailand, on December 26, 2004. If you think back, you'll remember why this date & region are so important - it's where and when the worst tsunami hit. Maria Bennett (played by Watts) and her family  - comprised of husband, 10 year old son Lucas, 7 year old son Thomas, and 5 year old son Simon - are on vacation, relaxing by the pool when the first tidal wave hits. This is the true story of what happened to her family.

Bring a box of Kleenex to this movie. Wow. There are so many horrible images and trying moments. I kept thinking I knew what was going to happen to each member of the family throughout the movie but, thankfully, I was wrong each time.

The way the story is told, how it unfolds, was very well done. There's not much leading up to the tsunami so at first, I was annoyed with how little time was spent on character development. But then when all the drama and trauma and action began spewing out, I was glad they didn't waste time with getting to know each character. The drama took a painfully long time to play out. Every few minutes a new heartache would emerge. The suspense was agony. "How will everything turn out?" "Who lives? Who dies?" The questions keep coming. My anxiety kept building.

The acting. All excellent. The actors spent a lot of time wet and grimy, which can't be fun. Since I haven't seen every movie with a nominated actor or actress, I can't compare. But, unfortunately, there's probably someone who will win over Naomi Watts. She does deserve her nomination, if only for the scene where she's being dragged towards help. I know I felt every bump for her. And Ewan Mcgregor deserved his Golden Globes Best Actor nom. There are a couple of anguished scenes for him that were sorrowfully riveting. The little boys were also quite good.

This movie does a wonderful job of depicting the magnitude of despair. The hospital. Wow. To survive the tsunami and then have to be one of a thousand people seeking medical treatment.  First, the floors of the hospital were absolutely dirty. There's a lovely closeup as a boy peels an orange and the rind drops on the floor. Wow. A hospital with a dirty floor. A disgustingly dirty floor. And thousands of people need this hospital to survive. And that's just it - thousands of people need this hospital to survive. There are people on stretchers in the halls, in the supply closets, anywhere there's space.And then pan out onto the hospital grounds and see all the tents - more people.  And each one with an absolutely ghastly injury. Have a broken leg? Well, you're going to have to wait a few days for treatment because there are people missing a limb, who have shrapnel sticking out of their torsos, whose faces are so swollen that you can't make out one distinguishing feature. It's a wonder that people actually found those that they were looking for.

One thing this movie made painfully clear: You can never prepare for a disaster. There's no hard and fast rule that applies to every kind of disaster. When I travel, I always bring Band-Aids and Benadryl and Advil and an ace bandage. Jeff always brings photocopies of our passports. We always have a bottle of water in our backpack when walking around. But none of that matters when a tidal wave drags you out to sea. And then the test really begins. How do you meet up with your travelling companions who were dragged under water and carried along water that 10 minutes ago wasn't there? How do you get help when all you see for miles is mountains of debris, things that used to be houses and gardens and cars, and no other people? The unknown is overwhelming and only adding to the pressure is the life and death situation.

The ending really hit me when the people sitting on the plane, who are on their way to a hot shower, a clean room, and an end to the nightmare they've endured, look out the window and see all of the destruction, see what they lived through. Normally, when you look out the window after leaving a vacation, there's a bit of nostalgia. I had to wonder, A). "Would they ever go on vacation again?" and B). "How does one truly ever recover from that?"

After the movie, it suddenly hit me why this movie was called The Impossible. 

So... in sum, an incredibly harrowing tale. If disaster movies give you nightmare (which they do to me), you might want to stay away from this one. I know I'm going to have nightmares about tidal waves now. And I'm never going to be able to look out the window of a plane after a vacation quite the same way again.  It's painful (in a good way). It's bleak, depressing, distressing, and just plain sad. But it's well done (the despair and agony). And well acted. And well told. You really feel what these people went through. That's a good thing and a bad thing. So... if you have nerves of steel and bring a box of Kleenex and someone to hug after the movie, it might be a good one to watch. If you can't do that, just take note that disasters suck. They make you stronger. They do a lot of damage. And you don't want to be caught in one. Hug your loved ones now.

One question: Why were there so few people on the plane at the end? With all that turmoil, you'd think they'd only fly full - or almost full - flights.

One observation: This movie is based on a Spanish family's experiences during the tsunami and yet the family in the movie are British (the husband's real name is Enrique but in the movie it's Henry...). With Naomi Watts' strawberry blond hair, I assumed that's what the real Maria had looked like (since she normally has platinum blonde hair). Why go to the length to change it? At the end, there was a picture of the family as they had looked in real life and Maria had black hair. Not that it matters but I thought it was an interesting change - from Spanish to British - that didn't seem necessary. This fact changes how a few scenes may have really happened - did the real life children speak fluent English?