Throughout, The Impossible pits two forces against each other: those that make us cringe and those that make us cry. At times, it’s unsure which one it posits as stronger. We are at one moment tethered to Maria (Naomi Watts) as she’s churned together with debris, trees and other bodies under the invasive ocean. At another, we are nauseated by the rash of seaweed-filled vomit that seems epidemical in the triage ward. As a viewer, it’s usual to find your fingers digging into the armrests as Maria and her son Lucas desperately try to snag each other’s hands as they are rushed and funneled farther and farther away from the disappeared shore as their solitary screams are snuffed out by the bulldozing waters.
You might also wonder why so much time is spent showing Maria climb a tree. The hole in her leg is obvious as is the pain that puppets her facial expressions, but amidst all this pain and the numerous pints of lost blood, we also wonder why she has yet to pass out. Adrenaline? Sure. Need to survive? Possibly. An exaggerated way for the filmmakers to convey the amount of indescribable pain and circumstance endured by those who survived the tsunami? More likely.
These juxtapositions are what make The Impossible a fine film. They are also what bogs it down as a film with a nebulous agenda. Like bodies under the all-encompassing water, the themes are tossed about and not always in focus.
There is a brief look at survival and disparity – though I’m not sure the latter is intentional.
People team together despite extraordinary circumstances, but the survivors in the hospitals are mostly comprised of white tourists. Their origins unknown, their accents varied, but they’re mostly white. On the other hand, the benevolent, helpful Thai seem all too familiar with the situation, though this is curious given its historically unusual intensity and occurrence. A group of Thai who appear no worse for wear find Maria, her son, and another young boy, clothe them and carry them to the hospital. This is certainly philanthropic, but and unclear message. It either suggests that they are – as a whole – okay and are able to help the dispersed tourists, or have lost so many of their own that they have nothing left to do but help the same tourists. Both seem a bit unlikely – and neither are clarified by the mostly white population in the hospital.
However, I’m more inclined to cling to the first reading. The Impossible also explores a seemingly ubiquitous false sense of security. This is clear from the beginning when Maria and her youngest child are the only ones seemingly unnerved by turbulence on the plane. Her husband Henry (Ewan McGregor) and their other two children seem fine with the plane’s bouncing – as do the other passengers. This is no further diluted by Henry’s occupation or their life in Japan, even though they are all from Australia. Such a familiarity with mobility (whether by choice or through employment) dilutes our fears of travel and takes away some of the majestic calm promoted around exotic islands and nations. Maria, Henry and their brood do not vacation in the bush of West Australia; rather, they escape to a tropical country – with hundreds of others just like them. Simultaneously, the create the familiar among the exotic, a space that is more illusory than acknowledged.
This juxtaposition is hardly lost on director Juan Antonio Bayona, who spends much of the beginning of the film conveying us the majestic, blue-stone calm of the ocean but reminding us of its potential ominousness by including the constantly moving and churning sounds of the ebb and flow of the tides. Each motion contains a power unstoppable if unleashed past the darkened line that vaguely demarcates the shore from the ocean.
But this power and potential is overshadowed by Christmas vacations, new toys, and hand-held cameras. Bayona doesn’t vilify his protagonists, but he constantly reminds us of their futility.
Overall, The Impossible is Romantic, constantly alluding to our fallibility, the power of nature, and our tendency to fall back into comfortably ignorant bliss. It is a film that, at times, comes off as melodramatic. In other moments, particularly those that twist, turn, and hurl you through the tsunami, remind us that we have no frame of reference to judge the veracity of such elation, fear of such a situation, or understanding of such pain while struggling free from the talons of death.
