By C. Ramsay
María Belón, her husband Enrique Álvarez, and their three children went on vacation to Khao Lak, Thailand in December 2004, facing separation and near-death experiences when a massive tsunami devastated multiple countries in the region. Based on these real-life events, The Impossible follows the survival efforts of Naomi Watts as Dr. Maria Bennett, Ewan McGregor as her husband Henry, and their three young sons—Lucas, Thomas, and Simon—played by Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, and Oaklee Pendergast, respectively. Aside from some basic characterization, next to no time is spent with the family before the tsunami occurs, throwing the audience just as unexpectedly into the turmoil as the people in the film. A path to deeper characterization is achieved through exploring the misunderstandings and misjudgments that can arise in times of communal crisis, particularly when people are experiencing shock and do not have access to immediate medical treatment.
The tsunami itself is harrowing, having been shot mostly using practical rather than digital effects to create an extended scene that results in Maria and Lucas being separated from Henry, Thomas, and Simon, with both groups being completely unsure of whether the others have survived. The degree of destruction is exemplified through different means, with close-ups generally being used to emphasize the panic, discomfort, exhaustion, fear, and overall sentimentality of the people at the forefront of the disaster, and much wider shots being used to capture how jarring the scope of the chaos is. The casualty makeup is quite graphic and there are a few deeply unpleasant sequences in which the gruesomeness of certain injuries is underscored rather than shied away from. What’s most gut-wrenching about the aftermath of something so suddenly incomprehensible are the minute details: the sound of a crying baby drifting away, a toy half-buried in debris, or torn clothing nestled at the top of a tree. The visuals of the film are designed to resolutely impact the audience, on our end triggering survival and organizational questions that are relevant but may not be readily answerable by following the people we do, allowing us to better identify with the confusion and worry that these characters experience.
In following Maria, Henry, Lucas, Thomas, and Simon, as well as their frequent interactions with other tourists, The Impossible ends up being fairly heavily focused on the (often white) people visiting Thailand rather than on the Thai population. The country’s resources are shown to be stretched thin in response to a disaster of such severity, and it’s the ruin present in this backdrop that highlights how selflessly local people provided aid. Director J. A. Bayona also features some instances in which white tourists are shown to be the ones making poor decisions, lacking empathy, or being overly individualistic, all of which provide glaring insight into where increased strain was coming from. The film successfully generates a third-dimensionality for the main family and many of the other tourists by centering the combination of their accomplishments, faults, and range of emotions, but then goes on to assume that the audience will automatically extend the same level of understanding to everyone else by association. Only showing the assistance provided by Thai people without also stressing the momentousness of their losses comparatively to the people they’re helping unfairly relegates them to the sidelines by failing to extend that same three-dimensionality and consequently reducing the depth of their humanity.
The Impossible is much less about examining the logistics involved in reacting to a disaster such as a tsunami than it is a character study on how people treat each other under duress. For the main family, especially since the kids are so young, the primary focus is on how the events of the catastrophe force them to push themselves and take initiative in the moment without necessarily comparing those responses to how they may have acted previously. While it can’t be overlooked that a film choosing to tell its story through an emotionally relatable lens while simultaneously concentrating on a specific group of people will inevitably alienate others, there are still many components that are effective and on a technical level double as a feat of filmmaking.
Star rating (/5): ★★★½
Recommend?: Yes