Based on a real story, The Impossible successfully represents the dreadful and horrific experience of living through a tsunami. When least expected, the family in the film was separated. The Impossible will make you feel like anything is possible and give you hope.

The Impossible takes place in 2004 during Thailand’s tsunami. During a vacation in Thailand, a family is separated, with no other hope than to find each other. The mother, Maria (Naomi Watts) along with her oldest son, Lucas (Tom Holland) make their way to a local hospital while the father, Henry (Ewan McGregor) accompanied by the two youngest sons go looking for the rest in order to reunite the family.

The acting makes the viewer understand what the characters are going through. I particularly liked Naomi Watts’ acting, she captured  the feelings of a mother and her desire to protect her sons very well. The character also has a strong and fundamental role in the movie. On the other hand, Ewan McGregor’s character could have had a bigger role. He is represented as character with a single goal, finding whatever remains of his family. It’s reasonable, yet he could have had more, as Tom Holland did. Tom’s character helped others in the hospital, giving him a more critical role in the movie.

Overall, the movie has very good special effects, this is noticeable right at the beginning when the tsunami happens. As it’s based on facts, the movie represented the situation and the pain of the people who lived it very realistically.

It is PG-13 as the disaster scenes and the injuries are very realistically represented. Personally, I agree with the rating as  younger children could be traumatised by it or not understand it, therefore disliking it. I would recommend The Impossible to people who like to cry when watching movies as it’s very emotional. On the other hand, I wouldn’t suggest watching it if you were very sensitive. I highly recommend it as it’ll give you hope and make you believe that anything is possible!

Rating:

4.5/5

Marta R. is a grade 10 student in SIS (Stockholm International School). She was born in Madrid, Spain and lived there until the end of 8th grade, when she moved to Sweden. After  2 years there she is now moving back to Madrid.