The movie opens in with your prototypical middle class family, light-hearted banter on an airplane to exotic lands. This serves as our introduction to the family, and they seem…nice. That’s really the only way to describe them, because they lack any definitive character - within this film, their main characteristic is their victim status. Director Antonio Bayona does try and squeeze in some development at the beginning in a short period of time: the young sons bickering, the anxiety the mother experiences during turbulence - but it all feels a bit like a forced attempt to make the audience “connect”. Dimension is sacrificed for likeability, inevitably making them bland.
Admittedly, the special effects were impressively realistic - the tsunami’s force was depicted on screen with devastating intensity. Throughout, the backdrop of their surroundings conveys a ravished beauty of Thailand, in the wake of disaster. Visually this film is pretty superb, but it over relies on these aesthetics to carry it through its unfocused direction.
And it’s the misguided direction of The Impossible that disappoints me the most. Once we (spoiler alert) find out the entire family survives, and are in the care of people early on in the film, it’s only a matter of time before they’d reunite. Yet the majority of the film’s plot is centred around their search for each other - we know it’s inevitable that they’ll see each other again at home, so it seems a bit purposeless.
Bayona has chosen to focus in on the one family when making this film, but in doing so, the devastating impact of the tsunami on basically everyone else is background noise. This film is less about the tsunami and more about the impact the tsunami had on this particular family - who the audience aren’t even that connected with. Yes what happened to these people was awful, but what makes them so distinctive from everyone else, that we’re focusing on their narrative exclusively? The Impossible never reaches a purposeful end (spoiler alert) - it’s great the family are healthy and leaving the disaster and chaos behind - but what about everyone else? Basically, the focus of a smaller plotline in the context of a disaster where the unluckier stories are to a large extent brushed aside, comes off as indulgent.
The real-life family The Impossible is based on are Spanish, but in the film, they’re interpreted as a white, British family. I’m assuming this is as this film is targeted toward a Western audience, hence to increase the relatability factor the protagonists are intended to resemble the “typical” Western family, and thus this includes race. I think it’s sad really, that it was felt that this already harrowing true-life story needed to be adapted in this way, like this would draw out a deeper response. It’s sending out the message to the audience that they’d be more likely to identify with the suffering of someone their own race - when really, what should it even matter? As if we’re so egotistical, that we’re incapable of extending equal sympathy toward the plight of someone we don’t identify with on every single level. I get the idea of cinematic adaptation from real life to the screen, but this just seems like an unnecessary compromise of reality.
Overall, The Impossible clearly isn’t up there in my favourite films. It was heavy handed, unsubtle - it took a genuinely tragic, real-life event and turned into a clichéd affair. I know I’m in a minority, as almost everyone else I’ve spoken to were so moved - but The Impossible just didn’t connect with me at all.
Anita Bhadani
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