Review of the movie " The Impossible"

Impossible is a movie that narrates tragedy moments faced by a family when encountered by natural disaster. The sadness in this movie seem to go on longer that anyone expected scene to scene. The Impossible features the devastating disaster that happened in 2004 (tsunami) with an insight into the horrific scenarios many victims had witnessed. However, to make the true story cinematic, a family had to be placed at the centre of it.

The movie focuses on the family of five who travelled to a hotel in Thailand for their Christmas celebration. Credit to the director Juan Antonio Bayona who preserves this Christmas image in the movie but quickly takes it away when the sea comes to reclaim the land, eventually destroying everything in its path.

The family of five was headed by Henry (Ewan McGregor) and Maria (Naomi Watts). The children are Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin), and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). 

There is a pertinent moment which will most likely stay in many memories; and that is the tranquil moment when water is rising behind the scene of the family playing in the pool. That scene is more that a nightmare, especially when the head of the family Henry grabs the two youngest children he could only reach at the time while screaming at his elder son Lucas, whom he watches get submerged by water apparently hanging above the treeline. Maria on the other hand is unable to get to Lucas but watch him in his ordeal. The water crashes down on the family and many others at the resort and in the surrounding area.

This therefore,  is where the power cinematography comes articulating itself. Exposing a visual of thrills with clearly does not need 3D effect to get the audience at the edge of their seats. 

"The Impossible" is a true story of a real Spanish family named Alvarez Balon, the members of which were all caught in the 2004 tsunami in much the same way that Henry, Maria, and their family were in the movie. Knowing this might be very sentimental for most but it does not ruin the experience that Bayona the director and his cast create in the film. The rushing water and mass amounts of debris are a part of the visual horror that Bayona puts together to bring the experience of the tsunami to the big screen which strives at reminding audiences scne to scene of the real danger Alvarez Balon's family members suffered.

Bayona and his work with the water effects, evidently prove any film can depict true story without highly fictionalising it. The Impossible" unquestionably keeps the audiences glued to their seats on its merits alone.