The Impossible 8/10Very disturbing if you have kids.
I liked how the director did not go for sensationalizing the event. You didn't get a build up to the tsunami, no 'forboding', you don't have an outside eye of the event as that is not what the story's focus is about. It's about this family's experience. You experience the tsunami as they did.
So the movie tsunami hits out of the blue as it no doubt did to the real victims. The movie didn't linger on the deaths of thousands or have lurid scenes of those caught in the path of the wave. It stayed focused on the family. There is no 'moral' to the story, the ending is not "Hollywood-ized", you feel very much for the family, you empathize a lot. But though your heart strings are tugged, it's not because the movie is manipulative. Your heart strings are tugged because you're human.
Of course you would feel for the people in this situation. You end up feeling a tiny fraction of the stunned shock the victims spent most of the movie in more than anything else. It was a lot more realistic than I expected.
Naomi Watts is amazing as is the actor who played her elder son. Ewan McGregor does what he does best, anchors the movie with his always sincere and believable performance.
Beginners 6/10While the movie is good, it's a bit too vague and unrealistic for me. The main character Oliver, played by Ewan McGregor spends a lot of the movie sad and not really knowing how to cope, though it appears he had sufficient love and interaction with - his mother at least - parents. You wonder where other family members are to support him. His friends try, but his father's friends, of which there appear to be many, are nowhere in sight.
I give kudos for the director actually showing he has a job, but it disappoints in that he doesn't actually seem productive there and this is shown, so I spent the movie wondering when his bosses were going to lay him off.
His love interest, while I found her character very engaging and interesting, was disappointing in that she remained mysterious, with no real reason why Oliver finds her attractive, there is no clear explanation of why her character is the way she is and her choice of profession was very "Hollywood". I was like, really?
And both, of course, live in large, retro homes in LA and one has a decent sized apartment in NY even though both have professions that do not indicate they get paid much more than a barista at Starbucks.
However, on the upside, the acting was well done. You can see why Christopher Plummer won an Oscar. His acting is effortless. His coming out story is, surprisingly, not the focus of the movie. Neither is how his son deals with it and the ramifications of it. What the focus of the movie is how Oliver deals with grief. While that is good in one way, his father's coming out and being gay isn't the OMG!! event, it's also kind of strange in that it's like window dressing on a movie about grief and loss.
I guess that's a good thing and a sign of progress. Being gay is no longer a big deal.
Watch it if you have nothing else going on because Ewan is at his most beautiful in this and
The Impossible.
Topic: Resurrecting the Movies thread... (Read 1041584 times)