This telling about the 2004 tsunami that killed in excess of 250,000 people hit both critical acclaim and controversy when it was released . Naomi Watts was Oscar nominated as best actress but there were some outcries that the characters had been changed from Spanairds to Anglo-Saxons for no good reason . This wasn't a case of arrogant Hollywood changing characters in order to bring audience identification to a true life story because THE IMPOSSIBLE is in fact a Spanish film with a Spanish production team and one wonders why the producers couldn't have put some native Spanairds in front of the camera ? Would the film have suffered if we had Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz playing Henry and Maria ? There wouldn't have even needed to speak in their native tongues
Where THE IMPOSSIBLE does succeed is in the devastating spectacle of the tsunami itself which has to be seen to be believed and is a technical miracle in film making . The fall out from this tidal wave which ended hundreds of thousands of human lives is well realised but from a dramatic point of view is very flawed . You see both Maria and her son Lucas both survive the disaster and are separated from Henry and the two other sons Tomas and Simon who believe Maria and Lucas are dead . Of course the audience know they aren't which means we're one step ahead of Henry . Put it like this - the story would have worked much , much better if the story had been told entirely through Henry's eyes where the audience are put through his point of view where he believes his wife and son are dead only to have to the audience to experience great joy at the end when he finds out Maria and Lucas have survived . It might have meant Naomi Watts missing out on an Oscar nomination but would have made for a more dramatic film . As it stands Watts performance and the tsunami scene are by far the best things about a film that's not as good as it could have been
Where THE IMPOSSIBLE does succeed is in the devastating spectacle of the tsunami itself which has to be seen to be believed and is a technical miracle in film making . The fall out from this tidal wave which ended hundreds of thousands of human lives is well realised but from a dramatic point of view is very flawed . You see both Maria and her son Lucas both survive the disaster and are separated from Henry and the two other sons Tomas and Simon who believe Maria and Lucas are dead . Of course the audience know they aren't which means we're one step ahead of Henry . Put it like this - the story would have worked much , much better if the story had been told entirely through Henry's eyes where the audience are put through his point of view where he believes his wife and son are dead only to have to the audience to experience great joy at the end when he finds out Maria and Lucas have survived . It might have meant Naomi Watts missing out on an Oscar nomination but would have made for a more dramatic film . As it stands Watts performance and the tsunami scene are by far the best things about a film that's not as good as it could have been