Showing @ Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh from Tue 01 – Mon 07 Jan 2013

Juan Antonio Bayona / Spain / 2012 / 114 min

Forecasted as England’s wettest year, 2012 has delivered one of the soggiest Christmases on record with thousands of homes flooded. Juan Antonio Bayona’s traumatic film recounts the true story of one family’s catastrophic experiences with the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. Whilst holidaying in Thailand Henry (Ewan McGregor), Maria (Naomi Watts) and their three young children’s yuletide is thrown into turmoil.

The devastation portrayed during and after the wave efficaciously paints the tortuous experience for not only the protagonists but also the thousands of other Westerners and Asians involved. Bayona is extremely efficient in provoking empathies (the frantic scamperings around hospitals) but after the first hour the character’s hapless wanderings become wearisome stretching your emotional investment. With little variation to the plot it begins to feel like an elongated charity appeal advert swelling feelings of guilt at your own good fortune. Although the evocative nature of the harrowing narrative acts to draw you into the swilling chaos, the family’s toils feels bolstered (the scene where they keep missing each other) in order to bulk out the runtime. This would work better as an hour-long documentary but it’s been embellished into an emotionally manipulating feature. Despite dramatic visuals of the sodden aftermath being a powerful image of the suffering inflicted the storyline doesn’t quite have the substance to support it.

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