The Impossible

As long as it focuses on a civilian start and subsequent perfect audiovisual experience, Bayona scores with practically every shot. Touching moments in the second half and the mutual passing in the rescue center, however, mostly missed me to my own surprise. I can simply see and acknowledge the strength in The Impossible, but I don't feel it. However, this doesn't take away anything from the amazing performances of the whole family. (12/02/2013)

It hit me very hard. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. Perfectly played characters, neither Naomi Watts nor Ewan McGregor are trying to be falsely nice, the kids (like in reality) are sometimes begging for a spanking, but things rarely get out of hand. You can’t tell that when the wave washes everything away that it’s special effects. I don’t understand how they could film this so well without demolishing a hotel and defiling a bit of Thailand coastline. The introductory mayhem is replaced by emotionally draining search for the family split up by the catastrophe. And you know how everybody lies, saying they didn’t cry at the end of Titanic? That applies here for a whole half of the movie. The Impossible is a sincere tear-jerker with a powerful ending. Bayona is a director I will have to look out for in the future. His style turned a regular disaster movie into a breath-taking event where chills run up and down your spine, you feel nauseous and at the end you’re be so relieved that later you will cuddle up tight to your better half, female or male. I’m scared too. (04/02/2013)

Bayona puts his previous experience with the horror genre to good use right from the beginning. The disconcerting musical motif and the method of filming (looking up from the depths) transform  the tranquil ocean surface into a sinister monster that may come to life in an unguarded moment. The fast-moving, screen-filling wave turns the master of creation into a defenceless being. The characters have nowhere to run, and we don’t either. Thanks to the rumbling sound effects, this is one of the most impressive images of destruction that I have “endured” at the cinema in recent years with respect to the visceral experience that it provides. The 3D glasses were paradoxically unnecessary. ___ After we and the characters are pummelled by the uncontrollable force of nature,   the film smoothly transitions into a family melodrama. The demonstration of brilliant special effects alternates with acting that is tenacious in both body and soul. Naomi Watts excels and she suffers the most of all the characters (perhaps because that’s how it happened in reality, or perhaps because she is a woman and this is a melodrama). She is supported superbly and without superfluous words by Tom Holland, who fits his role even better than Ewan McGregor, whose tense emotional state is obviously only a matter of acting. ___ The change in the eldest son’s behaviour shows how drastically such an extreme experience can alter one’s personal hierarchy of values. Material conveniences are suddenly needless, a cola can becomes a valuable treasure and children can no longer rely on the fact that adults will take care of everything necessary. The previous relationship hierarchy has become broken, roles have been reversed. ___ The simple idea of the importance of family cohesion and helping each other is consistently, though with (understandable) tendencies toward melodramatic excess, woven into the narrative, which brings a sense of urgency to the retelling of an eight-year-old story. We have to face the fact that our loved ones will be the only people to help us in the event of an economic (or other) collapse predicted by the sceptics. ___ The greatest tension in the film is created by delaying the moment of the scattered family members’ reunion. We anticipate the re-establishment of the initial harmony due to the logic of the melodrama genre, which Bayona was clearly well aware of and he does everything he can to make us unsure of whether the restoration of the status quo will happen too late. It’s thus not surprising that the emotional highlight of the film is in the form of a masterfully arranged scene of multiple characters passing each other in space. ___ I would venture to say that such an emotionally concise, superbly directed melodrama that makes full use of the privileges of the big screen has not appeared in cinemas at least since Titanic. 80% (30/01/2013)

Due to the lack of a longer introduction (Titanic) or continuous flashbacks (127 Hours) that would tell us more about the characters and make us relate to them, I just wasn’t all that emotionally invested in The Impossible. Watching the characters screaming the names of their loved ones and falling into their arms in protracted, dramatically edited scenes didn’t help in this respect. The film is well made and decently acted, but it is rather formulaic, without a powerful message or well-developed psychological basis of the characters. The main musical motif is beautiful, but they didn’t have to use it every ten minutes. (07/02/2013)

Finally, in this flood of dry and by-the-numbers award catchers, there is a film with heart that you can enjoy without a theoretical analysis. Impressive, intense, brilliantly made (the tsunami scene!) and touching like nothing in many years. Of course, sometimes the story is very clearly modified for the needs of the script (the casual mass reunion reminded me a little to the similarly made-up phone call in Argo). But when it works so well, who cares. (06/01/2013)