The Impossible

DRAMA | THRILLER

Struggling to Survive

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2 out of 5 | Movie - DVD - Rental

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Rated: PG-13 Disturbing injury images, brief nudity and intense realistic disaster sequences.
Release Date: January 4, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes

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Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Writers: Sergio G. Sánchez, María Belón
Cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oaklee Pendergast, Sonke Mohring, Johan Sundberg

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SYNOPSIS: An account of a family caught, with tens of thousands of strangers, in the mayhem of a tsunami wave that hit the pacific coast of Thailand on December 26th, 2004.

REVIEW: Juan Antonio Bayona, most known to American audiences as the director of the Guillermo del Toro produced The Orphanage, takes on a disaster/thriller of another sort. Bayona reteams with The Orphanage writer Sergio G. Sánchez and newcomer scribe María Belón to face down a monstrous natural disaster from the perspective of a couple and their three young boys.

Maria Bennett (Naomi Watts, Dream House), her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen), and their three sons Lucas (Tom Holland, voice - The Secret World of Arrietty), Thomas (Samuel Joslin), and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast) take a winter vacation in Khao Lak, Thailand for the Christmas holiday. Spending a couple days in a wonderful island resort swimming in the pools, snorkeling in the ocean, and playing on the beaches, their vacations seems idyllic. When a tsunami wave suddenly crashes into the coast and surges inland, the Bennett family are swept away in the wave away from each other. What comes next is a harrowing experience of survival of the body and spirit as each surviving member of the family must make sense of their new deconstructed surroundings - all the while struggling to stay alive and struggling to find out the fate of their loved ones.

In December of 2004, the Pacific Ocean erupted with destructive force, sending to shore a true life massive powerful tsunami wave to nearby Pacific Rim coastlines. Regardless of whether one lived in a shack or a newly constructed villa resort hotel, no one was safe or sheltered from the deadly slam of water that destroyed property, landscapes, and lives. The story of the Bennett family is just one of a thousand stories that affected real people living in Thailand and throughout the Rim.

Naomi Watts delivers a powerful performance as Maria, a mother desperate to survive her injuries and try to find a way to reunite with her family. After such a traumatic and unexpected event, who can one person do against such overwhelming odds? Her acting experience and talent is a tour de force equal to what nature has crashed into her character and her family. Watts' performance is nearly matched by that of young Tom Holland, Maria's oldest son Lucas in the film. His portrayal is raw and real, becoming more an anchor to the story than Watts or McGregor. The film really is the journey of a young boy becoming more than a boy.

Bayona's direction is riveting, part art house, part epic. He and Oscar Fuara (The Machinist) make every shot or sequence exquisite. From the way the warming sunlight dances through the ruined trees or shimmering off the same receding waters that caused the devastation. Extreme "pull-back" camera work shows the insignificance of man versus the immensity of the world itself. Add in Fernando Velázquez's (Mama) subtle, eerie, and haunting score, and the stage is set for a phenomenal, emotional, and moving family portrait.

The Impossible is a spectacularly personal account of real and tragic events. The film is moving and emotional, focusing on a family's perseverance stands against the insurmountable forces of nature.

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J. Edgar

A Man's Ambitions

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writers: Dustin Lance Black
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench, Jeffrey Donovan

SYNOPSIS: J. Edgar Hoover changed the face of law enforcement during his tenure as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But behind every criminal collar and new law hid a man with secrets and shames that could destroy everything he had built.

REVIEW: With an acting career spanning 65 years and a directing career since 1971, Clint Eastwood has become a cinematic institution. Behind the camera again for his 35th directorial effort, Eastwood takes a story written by Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black to attempt to bring to life J. Edgar Hoover and his reign in the United States government, first as part of the Justice department, the Bureau of Investigation then as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

John Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio, Inception) was born January 1st, 1895, in Washington, D.C.. As soon as he left graduated college, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department. From there, J. Edgar became acting director of the Bureau of Investigation, and as the first and longest reigning Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Along the way, Hoover enlarged the FBI into an expansive efficient investigative branch of the government. He used the FBI to root out suspected subversives, Communist radicals, Great Depression gangsters like John Dillinger, and the kidnapper of the Charles Lindbergh baby.

Expanding the powers of his federal crime-fighting government branch throughout his career, J. Edgar Hoover utilized all the powers at his disposal as director. At the guidance and upbringing of his mother (Judi Dench), Edgar portrayed an outwards appearance of patriotic and personal ambition. But behind closed doors, Hoover hid repressed homosexual feelings, insecurities, and a stutter. Throughout his career, Edgar kept with him a close confidant and eventual Deputy Director Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, The Social Network). They ate lunch and dinner together, went to the clubs and vacationed together. All along, executive secretary Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts) provided support and confidence for Edgar and his personal and government secrets.

Eastwood tells the story from the perspective of J. Edgar as he retells of his youth and his career to various young special agents as they type up his professional memoirs. A little disjointed at first, we quickly fall into the rhythm of Hoover's eloquent monologue of self promotion. DiCaprio is stellar as Hoover, at all ages. Dench as Hoover's mother Annie speaks volumes of her controlling and demanding nature while uttering few words. Armie Hammer as long-time friend Clyde Tolson is both brother and possible lover, his eyes betraying his pain and longing. But while the aging make up for DiCaprio's Hoover and Watts' Gandy are exceptional, Hammer's older Tolson seems plastic and unreal.

Eastwood looks long and hard into the professional and personal life of J. Edgar Hoover. At 2 hours and 17 minutes, we catch glimpses of the defeat of domestic Communist radicalism, gangsters and corruption. All the while, the use of excessive force and the bending of the laws to keep our nation safe seems to come at a cost. Well acted by DiCaprio, Watts, Dench, and Hammer, the subject matter is at times exciting and intriguing, and at other times slow, drawn out and unnecessary. Eastwood is a master of acting and of putting acting to film. Every element is calculated, every scene is utterly detailed, the lines of fact and fiction blurred.

I am sure there will be award buzz for DiCaprio and Dench in the upcoming couple of months. With Eastwood at the helm and the high caliber of acting talent, J. Edgar is both brilliant to watch and arduous to sit through.

WORTH: Rental

Dream House

Buyer Beware

Director: Jim Sheridan

Writers: David Loucka
Cast: Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, Naomi Watts, Elais Koteas, Taylor Geare, Claire Geare

SYNOPSIS: After a family moves into their new house, they soon come to realize that their dream home is not as perfect as they thought after learning that brutal crimes were committed there.

REVIEW: Jim Sheridan, director of such Daniel Day-Lewis films as The Boxer, My Left Foot, and In The Name of the Father, takes on the suspense genre with a screenplay from Eddie and Dream Team scribe David Loucka. Entitled Dream House, the film walks the fine line between the supernatural and madness.

Will Atenton (the newest James Bond Daniel Craig) gives up his editing position at a publishing house to spend more time with his wife Libby (Rachal Weisz from The Mummy trilogy) and two young girls, Trish (Taylor Geare) and Dee Dee (Claire Geare) in their new house. As Will starts work on his novel, Libby renovates and paints the house they now call a home. Soon, though, strange occurrences start, beginning with Dee Dee seeing fuzzy strangers outside the windows, and continuing with a group of goth teenagers partying and vandalizing their cellar with claims that the previous family were all brutally murdered by family's husband and father, Peter Ward. Found discarded in boxes in the cellar, Will finds microfilm from the library outlining Peter Ward's stint in prison, a psychiatric hospital and a halfway house. The more Will tries to uncover the truth about Peter Ward, the more questions he uncovers about Ward an about himself. Even the neighbor across the street, Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts - The Ring), seems to show concern for Will while hiding secrets of her own.

Dream House is both a ghost story, a murder mystery, wrapped in the uncertainty of a man wrestling with his own sanity. The story runs along at a tidy clip, efficient and focused. Wavering between the warm tones of the welcoming fantasy that Will creates for himself and the hard decayed blues of what could be his harsh reality, director Sheridan creates two distinct motifs with the same house - inside and out. Craig is serious and driven, his square jaw and piercing eyes eating up every scene. The rest of the cast, Watts, Weisz and the young Geare girls, weave a solid story. Ann Patterson's ex-husband Jack (Marton Csokas) and seemingly sinister Boyce (Elias Koteas) also prove pivotal participants to the tale.

Dream House is solid storytelling in and of itself, but has shades of other films that have scared us better, provided more suspense, or kept us in the dark as to what is reality and what is fiction. I have seen it all before and better, for the most part anyway. As entertaining and well-crafted as Dream House is, this film may end up in foreclosure.

WORTH: Matinee or Rental