The Impossible

I'm amazed by the design of the disaster - it's a demonstration of what a good filmmaker can do without an army of computers, only by working with perspective and shooting methods. For me, a completely equal affair with the sinking of the ship in Pi and his life smeared with mud and blood. Otherwise - I'm always wondering if the "real story" is just an alibi to excuse the usual schemes and clichés, or if the filmmaker can draw more than a few notorious lessons from the disaster about the fragility of man and the power of humanity (the last one who really captivated me was Danny Boyle and his rock climbing amputation). For me, in key moments The Impossible slips into uncovered exploitation, from which I soon lost all pleasure (sometimes I hesitated whether the tension was still meant seriously - vomiting of eyelashes and blood, which inadvertently looks like a B-movie horror scene). I want to see something more than just what I know from documentaries and the news, even if it's dressed in a masterful form. But the talk about the stars and the melodramatic passing are as if from a different sea than the realistic wave of dirt that so brutally tore me down against my will at the beginning. For Bayon, I actually have words of respect, but he really should be careful about the innocent submission to the expectations of the "genre". And he should try digging deeper, because this film is actually just "disaster tourism", where everything is solved by harmonious love... and good insurance. (2013-01-30)

Neither a pumped up eye-candy blockbuster, nor unnecessarily split emotions made in Spain, but it brings out the good from both. From the very first shots, you can see J.A. Bayona has talent, and the action sequence with the tsunami sweeps you away with its breathtaking visuals and uncompromising authenticity and clarity. The middle and final search part is a bit weaker in terms of both the script and pacing, but it still holds onto the necessary big emotions and, thanks to the capable director's hand, it doesn't slip into sentimentality, and when it does, only marginally, which can be endured. Naomi Watts is the best actress of our time. (2015-07-14)

It hit me very hard. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. Perfectly played characters, neither Naomi Watts nor Ewan McGregor are trying to be falsely nice, the kids (like in reality) are sometimes begging for a spanking, but things rarely get out of hand. You can’t tell that when the wave washes everything away that it’s special effects. I don’t understand how they could film this so well without demolishing a hotel and defiling a bit of Thailand coastline. The introductory mayhem is replaced by emotionally draining search for the family split up by the catastrophe. And you know how everybody lies, saying they didn’t cry at the end of Titanic? That applies here for a whole half of the movie. The Impossible is a sincere tear-jerker with a powerful ending. Bayona is a director I will have to look out for in the future. His style turned a regular disaster movie into a breath-taking event where chills run up and down your spine, you feel nauseous and at the end you’re be so relieved that later you will cuddle up tight to your better half, female or male. I’m scared too. (2013-02-04)

Due to the lack of a longer introduction (Titanic) or continuous flashbacks (127 Hours) that would tell us more about the characters and make us relate to them, I just wasn’t all that emotionally invested in The Impossible. Watching the characters screaming the names of their loved ones and falling into their arms in protracted, dramatically edited scenes didn’t help in this respect. The film is well made and decently acted, but it is rather formulaic, without a powerful message or well-developed psychological basis of the characters. The main musical motif is beautiful, but they didn’t have to use it every ten minutes. (2013-02-07)

A painful and thorough reconstruction of a great natural catastrophe, delivered mainly through the physical and mental suffering of the protagonists, with whom the viewer feels for until the last second, clinging like a tick to that sliver of hope that is the only thing that helps to keep their sanity in such a situation. I haven't kept my fingers crossed for film characters that much in a long time, and perhaps no film has ever made me cheer not for nature but for helpless and suffering people. When you watch Naomi Watts and see how incredibly real her torn and bruised face looks and every cry of pain feels, you can't help but put your feet up on the sofa and keep watching, even though there is no doubt about the "happy ending". Director Bayona doesn't have to worry about work, because here he squeezed all the juice out of the premise, and judging by the praise from the real people who were there, he squeezed it in a clearly correct and effective way :-) 80% (2013-09-01)