It’s impossible to watch this movie and not feel the angst of this vacationing family who suddenly got caught up in the giant tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, caused by the huge earthquake in the Indian Ocean
What seems strange, in this era of media over-communication, was how much this natural disaster seemed to take everyone by surprise. There is no warning here. There is no indication what kind of time lapse there might have been between the earthquake and the tidal wave which roared onto the beach of this bucolic Thai seaside resort. It seems like somebody would have sounded a warning, maybe? Instead of everyone just suddenly being carried away by the enormous surge?
Director Juan Antonio Bayona concentrates on this one family, Mom (Naomi Watts), Dad (Ewan McGregor), and three sons, Lucas (Tom Holland), Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). They’re hanging out by the pool one calm, clear, sunny Sunday morning when suddenly this gigantic tidal wave from the ocean crashes in on them. First, everyone is immediately submerged, and fighting to swim to the surface. Then, it’s a matter of trying not to get so swept away by the strong current as to get hit by random things like telephone poles, or floating automobiles. Then, it’s trying to find something to hold on to until help arrives
Mom and her oldest son somehow find each other in the maelstrom and stick together, but she is seriously injured, and he doesn’t know how to help her. Eventually, some natives stumble upon them and deliver them to the emergency medical care, set up like an enormous tent city, with thousands of people milling about, desperately trying to find each other, and beleaguered medical workers doing the best they can with limited staff and resources and facilities
Meanwhile, Dad has survived, with barely some scrapes and cuts and bruises, but he’s lost the rest of them. Impossibly, he finds his two younger sons, who were together hanging on to a tree, but he leaves them in the care of unknown others so he can look for Mom and Lucas, a snap judgment that even those around him questioned at the time
Impossibly, the whole family finds each other, Mom gets her surgery, and they all survive. But of course, there were many who didn’t.
Director Bayona does spend some time playing with the CGI in re-envisioning the climactic moment when the tsunami hit, but mostly, this is about what happened in the devastation afterwards, and this one family trying to reunite amidst the ensuing chaos, against all odds. In that way, it’s heartwarming and numbing at the same time. But this one is all drama – no lighthearted moments, no comedy, no romance, just continuous grim post-apocalyptic survivalism. Many viewers seeking lighthearted entertainment will not thrill to this prospect, but this disaster movie is convincingly made and delivered with an unrelenting intensity.
Ronald P. Salfen is the minister at St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Irving, Texas.
