Today I present for your consideration The Impossible (2012, Rated PG-13, available on DVD).
Henry (Ewan McGregor) and Maria (Naomi Watts) and their three young sons are spending the Christmas holidays at a resort in Thailand in 2004. They awake on Christmas Day to open gifts and then head out to the pool to play. Suddenly, the wind begins to blow, they hear a roar, and the tsunami hits.
Henry and the two younger boys are together, while Maria, who is badly injured, is swept away with their oldest son. If Maria survives, how will they ever be reunited?
The Impossible is frighteningly real. I felt caught up in every minute of the film. The director didn't use a computerized wave for the tsunami. Instead, he had a wave expert design a method for bringing in the water so it would look like an actual tsunami. They built a scale model of the resort that would be destroyed by the wave, so they had only one chance to get it right.
And these characters, based on a real family, had only one chance to survive.
Although this movie is rated PG-13, I would be wary of showing it to young teens. I think it might give them nightmares. If you're sensitive, it might give you nightmares. The characters face the fear of separation from one another, the danger of Maria's injuries, and the journey to obtain help, travelling past bodies and debris. I can't even imagine what a task it was to make this movie, but it gave me at least the tiniest inkling of what it was like to be there when the tsunami occurred.
It's really quite harrowing. I grant The Impossible The Janie Junebug Highest Seal of Approval.
I don't want you to think that every minute of the movie is misery. After Maria is hospitalized, she insists that her son do something to be of assistance to others. So he goes around gathering names from people and manages to reunite a father and son. Maria and her son also rescue a little boy.
In the midst of devastation are many quiet tales of heroism and kindness, just as there have been in Oklahoma.
I wish you a lovely weekend, and may God bless you on Memorial Day. Please remember those who have given their lives to keep us safe.
Infinities of love,
Janie Junebug
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