movie review about the impossible

A natural disaster, a sea of emotion

Tom Holland and Naomi Watts in "The Impossible."

The tsunami that devastated the Pacific Basin in the winter of 2004 remains one of the worst natural disasters in history. Although I assumed its climax, as shown in Clint Eastwood 's film " Hereafter " (2010), would never be surpassed, that was before I had seen "The Impossible." Here is a searing film of human tragedy.

We were London in 2004 when the disaster struck, and later we sat mesmerized in Biarritz, watching the news on television. Again and again, the towering wall of water rose from the sea, tossing trucks, buses and its helpless victims aside. Surely this was a blow from hell.

The victims in Eastwood's film beheld it afar on home video. In director Juan Antonio Bayona 's "The Impossible," they seem lost in it, engulfed by it, damned by it.

As "The Impossible" begins, all is quiet at a peaceful resort beach in Thailand. Seconds later, victims are swept up like matchsticks. The film is dominated by human figures: a young British couple, Maria and Henry Bennett ( Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor ), and their three young sons, Lucas, Simon and Thomas ( Tom Holland , Oaklee Pendergast and Samuel Joslin). All five fear they will never see their loved ones again.

In the earlier Eastwood film, they seem the victims of cruel destiny singling out a fate, perhaps foretold. In the Bayona film, have they been doomed by destiny? Seated in a dark theater, I reached out my hand for that of my wife's. She and I had visited the same beach and discussed visiting it with our children and grandchildren. An icy finger ran slowly down our spines.

Such a connection can be terrifying. What does it mean? We are the playthings of the gods. As the film's heroine, Naomi Watts powerfully becomes a front-runner for an Academy Award. Its eldest young hero, Lucas (Holland), separated from all, seeks tirelessly for fellow family members. How did anyone possibly survive? It takes a lot of courage for the little boy to bravely try to help others.

Spoilers follow, although the trailer and TV commercials reveal many of them. I'm happy I was blindsided by the story. We meet the Bennetts aboard a flight beginning their family holiday in Khao Lak, Thailand. We almost feel, rather than hear, a deeply alarming shift in the atmosphere. Something is fundamentally wrong. We see the tsunami from the tourists' point of view. There is a shift in the universe, leaving behind a dazed group whose world is a jumble of destruction. They wander through the wreckage.

Maria is terrifyingly knocked through a glass wall and realizes she can see her son Lucas' tiny head and body struggling to stay afloat in the surging flood waters. With indomitable strength and courage, she clings to debris, and they find themselves in a makeshift hospital that seems to have been somehow cobbled together. We realize she is the most seriously injured and begins to drift into and out of consciousness. She is a medical doctor and applies emergency first aid to herself.

Henry, tough and plucky, screams out the names of his two younger sons and loads them onto a truck bound for higher ground. The geographical layout miraculously seems halfway familiar to us after dozens of hours of cable news. All of those YouTube videos uploaded by strangers have been populated by characters we think of as people we know.

The film's most dramatic sequences focus on Lucas, assigning himself the role of his mother's lifeguard and protector. Now again, at another holiday season, this film becomes a powerful story of a family's cohesive strength.

Director Juan Antonio Bayona and writer Sergio G. Sanchez combine visual effects in this film that are doubly effective because they strive to do their job without calling undue attention. It is a mark of great acting in a film when it succeeds in accomplishing what it must precisely when it is required. "The Impossible" is one of the best films of the year.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

The Impossible

• Naomi Watts as Maria
• Ewan McGregor as Henry
• Tom Holland as Lucas
• Geraldine Chaplin as Old woman
• Oaklee Pendergast as Simon

Directed by

• Juan Antonio Bayona
• Sergio G. Sanchez

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The Impossible Reviews

... A moving, shocking, and visceral film. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 10/10 | Jan 2, 2024

This isn't a narrative of a larger-than-life hero swooping in to save the day; rather, it's a testament to the combined efforts of ordinary individuals, bound by humanity, who become heroes in the crucible of disaster.

Full Review | Dec 11, 2023

What one single movie can do is give at least one true story profound respect and realism. Most importantly, what the beauty of any movie can do is remind us all of the hope and survival that rises from the depths of tragedy and loss.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 4, 2023

With the help of Maria Belon herself, Sergio G Sanchez's taut and tear-stained script never overplays its hand when it comes to sentimentality and cleverly keeps the audience in the dark (sometimes literally) for as long as possible...

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 18, 2023

A punishing experience, with hardly a moment after the first twenty minutes where a lump isn’t in your throat or tears welling up in your eyes.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 20, 2022

It tells an intensely affecting story and allows our senses to take it all in and react in our own way.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 22, 2022

It starts not with clever attempts at drawing emotions from the audience, but rather with blunt, staggering visuals to demand pity and sympathy.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 1, 2020

In most years, Naomi Watts would be a shoo-in for an Oscar nomination with a performance that is absolutely mesmerizing and emotionally devastating.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 11, 2020

'The Impossible' is a magnificent survival drama. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 25, 2020

Dramatic and unwavering, The Impossible will make you believe that anything is possible.

Full Review | Nov 27, 2019

The purpose of Bayona's film is "dubious."

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 19, 2019

Sometimes it's sentimental to a fault, but the thrilling and innovative filmmaking that's being done makes it all worth it.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 7, 2019

The Impossible may be schmaltz, but it's damn good schmaltz. It's the kind of story that is so incredible, so impossible, that it can only be true.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2019

[The Impossible] shows us devastation, yes, unbelievable havoc, yes, horrific human loss, yes. But also, exemplary courage and love and compassion, all done with freshness and feeling.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 21, 2019

The wrath of nature is re-created so masterfully by filmmaker Juan Antonio Bayona that it feels like a documentary.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2019

It might seem a noble project, aiming to show the rest of the world what hell some endured. But even a dramatic film can only suggest part of the experience. And I fear The Impossible might serve only to trivialize that experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 18, 2018

Compelling and oozing with conflict and complexity, The Impossible is a heartfelt horror show worth its weight in reflective, ghoulish gold.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 18, 2018

It's all superbly acted, with Watts especially delivering a powerful performance.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 13, 2018

Bayona's staging of the tsunami without (seemingly without) digital effects is relentless, convincing, terrifying, non-stupid, and without Hollywood wonder.

Full Review | Apr 30, 2018

... Watts manages to transmit all the pain she suffers and what goes through the head of the protagonist... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Jan 23, 2018

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Parents' guide to, the impossible.

• Common Sense Says
• Parents Say 21 Reviews
• Kids Say 108 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Very intense story of family's survival against the odds.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Impossible is an intense family drama set against the 2004 Asian tsunami. Because of the subject matter, there are many upsetting sequences, particularly in the first half hour after the tsunami hits. People are shown swept away and presumably killed by the rushing wall of water,…

Why Age 14+?

The devastation the tsunami causes is catastrophic. People are swept away in a w

Adults at the resort kiss and dance and embrace. There's nudity, but in a co

Strong language includes a tween swearing. Words include "hell" and &q

Grown-ups drink at the hotel bar and a dinner party.

Any Positive Content?

Ultimately, The Impossible is a story of a mother and son's devotio

Maria and Lucas do everything they can to help each other survive. There are sev

Parents need to know that The Impossible is an intense family drama set against the 2004 Asian tsunami. Because of the subject matter, there are many upsetting sequences, particularly in the first half hour after the tsunami hits. People are shown swept away and presumably killed by the rushing wall of water, and a mother is so severely injured that a part of her skin is no longer attached to her body. Parents, please know that you, too, will be affected by the horrors depicted in the film -- none greater than when a boy believes he's all that's left of his immediate family.

To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Violence & Scariness

The devastation the tsunami causes is catastrophic. People are swept away in a wall of water, drowned or impaled or crushed by debris. Maria is seriously injured as her body makes impact in the rush of water. At one point, she's incredibly bloody and has a large flap of skin hanging off of her leg. People taken to the hospital are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Kids and teens will especially feel for Lucas, who at one point believes his mother is dead. Both Maria and Henry think the other has died. A tween yells at his mother a few times.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Adults at the resort kiss and dance and embrace. There's nudity, but in a completely asexual way. The mom, who was wearing a bathing suit when the tsunami struck, doesn't realize her breast is exposed until her son mentions it.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes a tween swearing. Words include "hell" and "goddamn."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Ultimately, The Impossible is a story of a mother and son's devotion to each other after the unthinkable has happened. The movie reinforces the random way that natural disasters cause destruction. There's no reason some people survive and others perish; it's a terrible tragedy with unthinkable consequences. But throughout the calamity, people show each other extraordinary kindness and generosity, sending the message that even in times of despair, there are moments of hope and small miracles to celebrate.

Positive Role Models

Maria and Lucas do everything they can to help each other survive. There are several times when Lucas must act like the parent and take care of his mother. He even has to literally carry and hoist her up a tree. Although it's a burden, Maria convinces Lucas to save a little toddler boy they find.

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

• Parents say (21)
• Kids say (108)

Based on 21 parent reviews

So well done, but disappointed with the nudity(non-sexual)

Graphic, but great depiction, what's the story.

Based on the true story of a Spanish family that survived the 2004 Asian tsunami, THE IMPOSSIBLE follows Henry ( Ewan McGregor ) and Maria ( Naomi Watts ), a British couple who travels to a luxury resort in Thailand for a Christmas holiday. They have three kids: tween Lucas ( Tom Holland ) and two younger boys. On Dec. 26, 2004, as the family is playing poolside, the massive tsunami hits the area, sweeping thousands into the ocean. Maria survives the worst but is gravely injured. She finds her oldest, and together she and Lucas attempt to overcome each devastating moment.

Is It Any Good?

Movies about a massively destructive event, whether it's a war or 9/11, can be difficult to watch and even more difficult to make well. By focusing on one family, director Juan Antonio Bayona wisely distills the tsunami tragedy down to the myopic perspective of one distraught woman and her mature-beyond-his-years son. Watts and Holland's interactions beautifully capture the bond between mother and child.

Watts is terrific, and Holland is remarkable -- reminiscent of young Hunter McCracken in The Tree of Life . No longer a little boy but far from a man, Holland's Lucas is fiercely determined to survive and help his mother secure medical attention. Once they safely land at a Thai hospital, the story loses some of its immediacy, but then we find out what happened to the father and brothers thought lost. The Impossible isn't an easy viewing experience, but it reminds us all that even in times of despair, there are moments of hope and small miracles to celebrate.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about whether The Impossible is a disaster movie or not. How does the depiction of the tsunami compare to other films about catastrophes? Critics have said the movie's ending takes away from its powerful beginning. Do you agree?

What feelings do you have while watching this movie? Is it OK to feel happy for the main characters amid so much devastation?

Are cinematic deaths resulting from disasters or accidents different than those due to war or other forms of violence ?

The Impossible is based on a real family's true story. How accurate do you think it is? Why might filmmakers decide to change some details/facts? How could you find out more?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 21, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : April 23, 2013
• Cast : Ewan McGregor , Naomi Watts , Tom Holland
• Director : Juan Antonio Bayona
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Summit Entertainment
• Genre : Drama
• Topics : History
• Run time : 114 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity
• Last updated : August 1, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Movie review: ‘The Impossible’ has the right touch with real horror

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So terrifying is the 2004 tsunami as imagined in “The Impossible,” its destructive force engulfing the screen with such violent menace, that the imagery alone elicits a rising dread so intense you may feel yourself gasping for breath.

Spanish-born director J.A. Bayona must have been tempted to let the monstrous waves triggered by the Indian Ocean earthquake that devastated South East Asia and left hundreds of thousands dead overwhelm the dramatic story he tells.

That never happens in this profoundly moving film inspired by the real-life experience of the Alvarez Belon family on that fateful December day. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor star as Maria and Henry, on holiday with their three boys at a Thailand beach resort, and the film introduces gifted young Tom Holland as the couple’s oldest son Lucas.

Best of 2012: Movies | TV | Pop music | Jazz

Bayona achieves a rare sense of balance between the big and the powerful as well as the small and the intimate in the family’s survival against impossible odds, no doubt the inspiration for the title. Their situation was heartbreaking, their courage in the face of it humbling. It is the kind of ode to the human spirit that you hope comes along, and not just during the holiday season.

One surprise is that it took a horror auteur to pull off such a grounded film without letting the tsunami, or the sentiment, get out of control, although he had an abundance of both in Sergio G. Sanchez’s screenplay. You could argue that “The Impossible” could have benefited from more nuance in the dialogue, but that flaw only slightly dims the power of the film.

As the movie opens, Maria and Henry are on a turbulent flight with their boys, Lucas, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). A smooth landing and 24 hours later, the Christmas presents dispensed and wrapping paper crumpled on the floor, they head to the pool. Bayona uses that brief calm before the tsunami to do more than introduce us to the people whose journey we will follow.

In a handful of scenes, the director lays the framework for the way in which he will use sight and sound to define their experience. The deafening roar of the jet engines, the glassy ocean underneath it, the eerie silence that thickens in the moments before the tsunami hits, and the muffled screams of Maria when it does, are beyond even what Bayona achieved in his petrifying Cannes Film Festival debut a few years ago. “The Orphanage,” also written by Sanchez, was a far more traditional genre film, though the director’s understanding of the fear that comes with the loss of control — those moments when forces beyond you take over your fate — very much infiltrated that film too.

Best of 2012: Video Games | Art | Theater | Awesome

For his second feature film, Bayona has significantly refined the sensory sensibilities, working once again with cinematographer Oscar Faura, whose impressive background includes other unsparing examinations of the human condition, notably 2010’s “Biutiful,” with Javier Bardem, and 2004’s “The Machinist,” with Christian Bale. You believe it when the filmmakers say the eight or so minutes of the tidal wave that we see on screen was a year in preparation and a month in shooting the special and visual effects veterans Felix Berges and Pau Costa created.

Like the experience of the family separated by the tsunami, the narrative is split between Maria and Lucas’ journey and Henry’s with the two younger boys, though the mother and son arc dominates. In the panic that overtakes Maria when she surfaces to a vast churn of water and debris, alone, no sight of her family or anyone else, the odds of survival are laid out. When she spots Lucas struggling in the current, the clash between incredible hope and absolute fear surfaces. Both those emotions carry the film.

Soon it becomes clear that coming out alive is no guarantee of survival. Maria’s injuries are grave and in that moment when Lucas sees a gaping wound and whispers “Mama,” the boy becomes a man. The many ways in which Lucas is forced to grow up in just a matter of days, and Maria’s instinctive understanding that to come out of this intact she must find a way to guide her son’s choices even as she lies near death, is the real heart of the movie. Holland and Watts’ onscreen bond is one of the most poignant aspects of the film.

As is always the case in disasters like these, the road to help is paved by the care and generosity of strangers, and the movie is filled with the many small acts of kindness extended to the family along the way. The villagers who rip off a door to carry Maria, the man who lends Henry his cell phone despite the precious minutes of battery life he will lose.

Henry spends the hours after the tsunami walking through the devastation screaming Maria and Lucas’ names, McGregor channeling such grief in every labored step. Soon he is forced to trust his 5- and 7-year-old boys to others so they can go to the safety of the hills as his search for the rest of the family continues.

Miles away in an over-crowded hospital, Maria faces multiple surgeries in the crudest of circumstances. The scope of the damage and the difficult realities are woven in. Pick-up trucks carrying bodies, the makeshift message boards with names of the missing, aid workers trying to keep up with the unending string of injuries, the parentless children, the childless parents, random family photos covered in mud, final notes left behind, houses reduced to matchstick heaps, and the growing field of bodies in bags become the backdrop. It was a fine line to walk to show the extent of the disaster and its human cost without making the moments feel like exploitation. The filmmakers have handled it with a sensitivity that is respectful of the loss.

Though many people will know the ending before they walk into the theater, that doesn’t make “The Impossible” any less affecting. For it is in the details — the many ways in which fate and circumstance intervened, and what survival required of each member of the Alvarez Belon family — that you find the far better story.

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Movie Reviews

Reliving an 'impossible' catastrophe.

Jeannette Catsoulis

The Impossible is based on the true story of a family's brush with disaster while vacationing in the Pacific. Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment hide caption

The Impossible

• Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
• Genre: Drama
• Running time: 114 minutes

Rated PG-13 for intense realistic disaster sequences, including disturbing injury images and brief nudity

With: Ewan McGregor, Naomi Watts

Watch A Clip

'Swept Everyone Away'

Credit: Summit Entertainment

Starring flying debris and surging walls of water, The Impossible takes the template of the old-timey disaster movie, strips it to the bone and pumps what's left up to 11.

Decades ago, perched in front of Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno , audiences were rewarded with thrills that depended on fleshed-out characters ( Steve McQueen as a fire chief!) and multiple interconnected storylines. How pampered we were.

Because this based-on-true-life tale of a Spanish family trapped in Thailand by the 2004 tsunami is much worse than a disaster: It's an ordeal. As punishing to watch as it must have been to film — especially for Naomi Watts, who absorbs most of the abuse — this sledgehammer of a picture never lets up. From start to finish, Watts' pale, slender body is pummeled, gored, pierced and raked over what looks like acres of saw grass and jagged detritus. Like James Franco in 127 Hours (an ordeal movie if ever there was one), Watts isn't so much battling the elements as battling the frailties of her own flesh.

Cycling through the late-night talk shows, Watts and her co-star, Ewan McGregor, have been extolling a slavish devotion to accuracy on the part of the film's Spanish director, Juan Antonio Bayona, and his screenwriter, Sergio G. Sanchez. It bears mentioning, however, that this precision has a very narrow focus, encouraging us to care only about a single (white, wealthy) family among the hundreds of thousands of (mostly poor, mostly brown) locals killed and maimed. For all the energy and ingenuity lavished on the project — the first to revolve around this century's greatest natural tragedy — you'd think there would have been room to explore the wider suffering.

Maria (Naomi Watts) and Lucas (Tom Holland) are ripped from their family by a tsunami. Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment hide caption

Maria (Naomi Watts) and Lucas (Tom Holland) are ripped from their family by a tsunami.

This microscopic approach may be economical, but it casts a pall of selfishness over events that might have read differently had the filmmakers exhibited a more universal compassion. (Those early disaster movies knew it was more humane, not just smarter filmmaking, to offer us a variety of victims.) So when businessman Henry Bennett (McGregor) dumps his two youngest sons with strangers while he hunts for his wife, Maria (Watts), and their oldest son, Lucas (a remarkable Tom Holland), he seems less the worried patriarch than a man accustomed to offloading inconveniences.

As it turns out, Henry is pretty much peripheral to the action anyway. From the moment the family, hours after arriving at a luxury beach resort, is separated by the mountainous tidal wave, he barely registers. Stuck on the fringes of the movie and squinting through a bad case of pinkeye, Henry and his quest are completely obliterated by the mother-son drama unfolding at its center.

And as Maria and Lucas make their slow, bloody way across a devastated landscape, her wide-open wounds are captured with almost sickening authenticity. Audience members have reportedly fainted during screenings, and it's not hard to see why; this isn't a film you want to experience after a heavy lunch.

Visually stunning but manipulative in the extreme — try not to roll your eyes as the various family members miss one another by inches — The Impossible nevertheless contains two of the year's best performances. Though presented as nothing more than a survival machine, Watts snags our sympathy through subtle shifts in expression and tone.

And young Holland (just 13 when he joined the production in 2009) is a marvel: When Lucas, after losing his mother in the chaos of a crowded hospital, finds her being prepped for emergency surgery, his angry relief is the film's most touching moment.

Unfortunately it's followed by one of the funniest. "Think of something nice," advises a nurse as she places an anesthesia mask over Maria's face. Like maybe a beach vacation?

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Metacritic reviews

The impossible.

• 100 The Hollywood Reporter The Hollywood Reporter The Impossible is one of the most emotionally realistic disaster movies in recent memory -- and certainly one of the most frightening in its epic re-creation of the catastrophic 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
• 100 Variety Justin Chang Variety Justin Chang Wrenchingly acted, deftly manipulated and terrifyingly well made.
• 100 Observer Rex Reed Observer Rex Reed Put a staggering accomplishment called The Impossible, from Spanish director J. A. Bayona, at the top of the season's must-see list.
• 80 The Guardian The Guardian Part of the appeal of this affecting and powerful drama is that it puts the viewer right in the moment at every stage, using authentic locations and tsunami survivors to hammer home the reality of this tragedy.
• 80 Total Film Total Film Marshalling formidable technique and force of feeling, Bayona's tale of courage and empathy in the face of catastrophe fulfils his debut's promise, its harrowing conviction hammered home even harder by the spot-on casting.
• 75 The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen The Impossible looks back at a natural calamity with unflinching honesty. It sees fear and pain, it sees fortitude and bravery, but mainly it sees this: In that raging instant when the sea becomes its own monster, there's precious little to separate the devoured from the spared – nothing but the thin wedge of luck.
• 75 ReelViews James Berardinelli ReelViews James Berardinelli The film's adult leads, Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor, give powerful, natural performances.
• 67 IndieWire Eric Kohn IndieWire Eric Kohn It suffers from the greater problem of emphasizing a feel-good plot within the context of mass destruction.
• 65 Movieline Movieline The latter half of The Impossible is so disappointingly movie-ish, tying a bow on the events after portraying them too vividly to allow them to be wrapped so neatly. It wrings out tears with an industrious efficiency that leaves you feeling manhandled after the exhilarating, terrifying footage that's unfolded before.
• 12 Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez Slant Magazine Ed Gonzalez A sham realist's disaster movie, tackily insulting the deaths of 300,000 people by reducing the horrors of the Indian Ocean tsunami to a series of genre titillations.
• See all 42 reviews on Metacritic.com
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