Ed's Review Dot Com

Apaches Entertainment, Telecinco Cinema, Mediaset España,

Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sonke Mohring

This is the story of a regular family, Maria (Naomi Watts) and Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons, who are on a vacation to Thailand at Christmas of 2004. They were happy to get upgraded to a beachfront villa at the Orchid when the huge tsunami hits. The family is by the pool, and they all are swept away. Maria and her oldest son, Lucas (Tom Holland) survive by holding on to a log floating by, but Maria is seriously injured and there is no sign of Dad or the other two boys. Trying to survive, and to find the rest of the family is the main goal of Lucas as he does his best to help others while watching out for his Mom. This is an exciting true story of the 2004 tsunami and the horrible damage it caused, while showing the best of humanity in trying to help each other survive.

This is a very realistic movie, and a real tear jerker. The events are really impressive considering there was not a big budget for this Spanish film. The producers purposely chose to use real effects instead of CGI, which is a great choice, in my opinion. As stated by the actors on the special features, at times they were totally beaten around, hurt, and scared half to death, as the effects were done with tons of water being dumped on them! This adds a lot to the realism of the film. I can’t attest to the accuracy of all the events, but they swear it’s a true story. What transcends the family, though is all the chaos and mayhem around them. This is the story of all the survivors. Additionally, a brilliant idea from the producers was to use real survivors as most of the extras in the film. They lived through it, so knew exactly how it happened. For example, there is a little boy named “Daniel” in the film who is reunited with his father. Supposedly the father in the film is the real little boy’s father (although the boy was named Johan) and he is reacting to what happened to him in real life when he was reunited with his own son. The emotions are certainly played with, and this is a really sad and tragic story, but it’s well done, and very realistic considering what they had to work with. The real star of the film is Lucas, and there have been a wide range of reviews of his performance, all the way from wooden and stiff to academy award level. I feel he did a pretty good job. Actor Tom Holland is certainly older than the role he was portraying, as if often the case (Ralph Macchio anyone?), but he realistically plays a young man in a horrible situation. Yes, he’s not real animated, but at the same time, he’s playing someone who’s been through a horrible ordeal and he’s watching the carnage all around him. He would be in shock himself, and I can’t imagine how the real young man would react in that situation. So for the role he’s playing, I think he did a really good job. This is really his story.

This is a stunning film, and one that will truly touch you, so I think it really deserving of a lot of attention. The worldwide audience was pretty decent for this film, and it seems like only in the US, did this pretty much get ignored. I really hope it has a resurgence in Video form, and that the word will get out that this is an excellent film and one that ought to be seen. I highly recommend it, but don’t put the little kids through this. The realism will be too much for them. The PG-13 rating is pretty accurate as younger children will probably be frightened at the realistic portrayal of the tsunami.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog