The Impossible (2012) - Movie Review

"The Impossible” is a heart touching depiction and narration of the tsunami which came on Dec 26, 2004 and killed nearly a quarter of a million people in 14 countries. The filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona has tried his best to narrate the story by essentially keeping a real frame through keeping the original emotionalism and sensationalism in tact. It is basically the real life disaster movie narrating the experiences of a family of five during Tsunami when they were on a Christmas vacation at the island of Khao Lak in Thailand. 


Juan Antonio Bayona has designed the start of “The Impossible” to be extravagantly emotional and symbolic. The movie begins with the symbolic representation of the slipping of pages of a novel which Naomi Watt playing the role of Maria is reading while she is on the flight to Thailand with her husband Henry (depicted by McGregor). It was just after the day of Christmas when the family was enjoying at the resort close to the beach and it was destroyed by the massive and cruel waves of tsunami. Maria and her elder son Lucas are swept far away from the resort and rest of their family members and continued to struggle for their survival separately. Both Maria and Lucas do not know that Henry has also survived with his two younger sons and is passing through the same period of struggle. “The Impossible” reaches its emotional apex when the members of family search for each other fighting through the surging waves.


McGregor playing the role of Henry after surviving the tsunami has not ended up his struggle to find his wife and his elder son Lucas. The pattern and format of the movie is designed by Juan Antonio Bayona in such a way that it is not built to go to the climax but in fact it starts from the climax. “The Impossible” has the different genres that are related with one another. The performance of the whole cast in the movie “The Impossible,” playing their definite characters is simply heart touching and awesome. Naomi Watts as Maria has depicted different facets of a mother during her struggle to save her child and of the victim of injuries. Similarly Juan Antonio Bayona has selected McGregor as Henry who has also done full justice with the character. The major credit for this movie goes to the make up department for making everything more than real. 

In short, the team work and convincing efforts of Juan Antonio Bayona have together made “The Impossible” a masterpiece.