Lo Imposible (2012)

A regular family – Maria, Henry and their three kids – travel to Thailand to spend Christmas. They get an upgrade to a villa on the coastline. After settling in and exchanging gifts, they go to the pool, like so many other tourists. A perfect paradise vacation until a distant noise becomes a roar. There is no time to escape from the tsunami; Maria and her eldest are swept one way, Henry and the youngest another. Who will survive, and what will become of them?

Genre : Drama/Thriller/History
Country : Spain

Cast :
Naomi Watts : Maria
Ewan McGregor : Henry
Tom Holland : Lucas

Director :
J.A. Bayona

Alternative title : The Impossible

An impressive, breathtaking, haunting and frightening movie I surely won’t forget. A very realistic picture about the devastating force that a tsunami can cause and it demonstrates how tiny we human beings are despite our high-tech knowledge when facing natural phenomena .

The title of the movie on its own is already a whopper of a spoiler, but personally I would rather just see this small miracle about a whole family surviving this disaster instead of seeing a movie about the thousands who didn’t survive. “You Tube” is full of tragic films, pictures and photos of victims. The fact that this movie was overflown (sorry…) with a Hollywood sauce, is perfectly normal. Had they filmed it as realistic as in reality, this would have been the most sickening movie nobody is waiting for. That’s why they left out half of the real story.

You could predict it would be a very emotional movie. I’m not a sensitive person, but at times I found it pretty difficult to keep it dry (No pun intended).
Nevertheless, some annoying things for me personally:
– They could have shown how the father and his 2 little sons managed to survive
– The moment they missed out on each other at the hospital was a bit exaggerated
– Maybe the father really did this, but I can’t understand how he could leave those two little toddlers behind. I’m a father and I would never leave my 2 little kids behind after surviving a calamity like this.

Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor did some superb acting. But the biggest achievement was made by the three sons. Especially Tom Holland. What an admirable performance!

My rating 8/10
Links : IMDB