'The Impossible' (2012): A discussion.

I'll start out by saying it has been somewhat disconcerting to read all the extremely negative user reviews regarding the main characters of the film, specifically that they are rich and white and how we are not shown much about the hundreds of thousands of native people who were affected by this disaster. I can understand where they are coming from but I would like to put that aside for now and discuss the film itself and not its suggested racial exclusivity.

Moving on.

I watched this film alone as close friends of our family died in this disaster in likely the same way as our antagonists almost did. I have to say I didn't think I would be disturbed by it but that was a grave miscalculation on my part. The disaster portion of the film that was presented close to the start and as a flash back towards the end was heavily graphic, gritty, raw and very well edited with strikingly real visual effects. The frightening emotional impact of these scenes hit me deeply and at one point I had to pause it and cuddle my sleeping 3 year old daughter, ever mindful of being with her in that situation as countless other families were. I did go back to watching for a short while but was then further disturbed by the aftermath of the event and turned it off for the night. I'll say that I did not at any moment feel that the film was overly graphic or too gritty. How else would a film maker convey such an overwhelmingly horrifying disaster? Sugar-coat it and you dilute the weight of it's emotional impact.

The remainder of the scenes, at worst, seemed to lack a cohesive plot and suffer from a somewhat dry script but this is more then made up with brilliant performances. Watts and McGregor felt invested and passionate about their roles and it showed. The children, namely Tom Holland, were near flawless which can be a rare thing for film. The scenes, obviously designed to illicit uplifting emotional responses in the face of such grim realities, were carried by the lead cast and their impacts hit home for me.

I went away from this film only to have it been on my mind for days, which is likely the reason I'm writing this now. It was not until I sought discussions of it on reddit and the (forgive me) IMDB forums where I found nothing but vitriol for the subjects of the film. Perhaps this is because I'm white but again, I don't wish for this to be the forefront of our discussion on TrueFilm - that said, if you wish to discuss it I am willing.