THE IMPOSSIBLE Review

There is a certain type of drag you feel surrounding a movie like The Impossible. Not because you expect it to be bad, you really have no right to believe it could be anything but good. Still, there is this worry that you've seen it all before. A heart wrenching love story complete against the backdrop of a historically true, but very tragic event. It would be hard to buy into this film if that story of love and overcoming obstacles wasn't actually true as well. Different from something like Titanic, the world is not yet distanced from the lives lost and devastation caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami. To impose such a positive story over these events would naturally feel disrespectful, but because the story is an accurate account of Alarez Belon's experience in the middle of such mass destruction their is no false motive detected but instead one that seems to imply that even in the darkest corners we might find hope. It is a harrowing experience to watch the film, and one that I was afraid would be ruined by the trailer that seemed to give far too much away. It did, but not to the extent I was concerned and that I felt I'd already experienced the entire film. It was somewhat of a strange sensation walking out of the movie, coming to terms with the frailty of life and that despite the countless horrible, horrible stories that came out of events like this their is still the possibility of the slightest bit of empathy from whomever fate decides to touch. The Impossible is not a bombastic tale of survival but is instead a very personal film, one that feels very close to the heart and allows the audience the horror of true loss rather than the desperation for false redemption.