The first few minutes of The Impossible were that of an overwhelming sense of doom. I knew exactly what was going to happen to the Bennett family-the devastating tsunami in Thailand in 2004 where they were vacationing for Christmas. I remember reading articles in People magazine about the natural disaster and now I saw on the big screen just how horrific the experiences of tsunami victims and survivors actually were.

The Impossible, by the renowned Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage), is based on the true story of a Spanish family's experience in Thailand. The acting was impeccable-from every character-and the special effects were flawless. The raw emotion mixed with hard-hitting images created a dual visual and mental response to the film. I cannot imagine a better way of telling the tragic story from the perspective of a single family.

Naomi Watts, as Maria Bennett, was incredible, and this was definitely one of her best performances to date; she captured the resilience, yet vulnerability, that the injured family matriarch experienced while fighting for survival. Ewan McGregor, as her husband Henry, embodied an entirely different character than the Star Wars jedi I had previously seen. After the tsunami first hit the oceanfront resort the family is staying in, Henry is left with the two youngest boys, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast), ages seven and five, respectively, still at the resort. He sends the boys off with a group of survivors headed to the mountains and stays behind to look for his wife, not knowing that she and their oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) have already started their journey to safety after being washed away from the resort by the relentless waves.

The rest of the film chronicles their travels through Thailand, separated from one another, while Maria is fighting for her life after a gory chest and leg wound. She and Lucas travel together, encountering natives who help them; as Maria becomes weaker, we see Lucas emerge as more than a 12-year-old boy. He is strong, resilient and takes care of his mother, becoming a man over the course of only a few days. It is an understatement that Holland is beyond amazing in this movie. Throughout much of the second half of the movie, he is the focal point, as he takes care of his mother, navigates the disaster-torn country and continues to hope the rest of his family has survived. As a young actor, it is clear that his rise to fame starts now, and he has won two awards for his performance in the movie-London Film Critics Circle Awards' Young British Performer of the Year and National Board of Review USA's Best Breakthrough Actor Performance.

However, The Impossible did receive some negative critiques, like that it inaccurately portrayed the tsunami from the perspective of a white, foreign family and ignored the plight of other people. But, the film is truly about a family and the ties that bond them together amidst an overwhelming crisis.

Personally, I like films that take a worldwide event and transform it into the experience of a single person or family; it creates a more personal, often more emotional connection for the viewer, especially when they didn't have the same experience. The Impossible reminded me of other noteworthy films, like United 93 and Extremely Loud & In- credibly Close, both about Sept. 11, yet containing entirely different spectrums of the story.

Visually, The Impossible is stunning and the detail and dedication put into the production is evident. Throughout the initial scenes of the tsunami's impact, they used moments of pure black, with only the sounds of rushing waves which mimicked the helplessness of being caught in the water.

Though some of the wider shots of the tsunami's destructive path were shot using miniatures, the scenes in which Watts tumbles like a rag doll through the debris-filled water are entirely real-she was actually submerged in a tank of water, take after take.
Walking away from the movie, I gained a greater understanding and visualization-though from a movie perspective-of what transpired in Thailand in 2004. The Impossible is a reminder of the tragedies that befall mankind and the need to maintain awareness of the lives of people around the world.