The Impossible
Short description
The Bennett family, on a winter holiday in Thailand, is caught in the tsunami that struck the region on 26 December 2004. Maria and Henry and their three sons are scattered when the water sweeps through their resort, and the film follows their efforts to survive and find one another amid a disaster that engulfed hundreds of thousands of people. The story is based on real events.
J. A. Bayona directed the film, working from a screenplay by Sergio G. Sánchez. It was Bayona's second feature, arriving five years after his debut, The Orphanage, and ahead of Nine Days in Haiti, A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Society of the Snow. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor play Maria and Henry, with Tom Holland as the eldest son, Lucas, and Samuel Joslin and Oaklee Pendergast as the younger boys. The production was mounted as a Spanish-American co-production with Thai involvement, and its worldwide gross of about 198 million dollars against a budget of 45 million made it a commercial success.
Audiences have rated it 7.5 out of 10 on IMDb, from more than 265,000 votes, and 7.4 out of 10 on TMDB. Its critics' rating stands at 7.4 out of 10 from 198 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is based on the true story of former doctor from Spain, Maria Belón Álvarez, who was vacationing in Thailand with her husband Enrique (Kike) and sons Lucas (12), Simon (8), and Tomás (5) in December 2004. Maria personally chose Naomi Watts for the leading role, although the Bennett family depicted in the film is English.
- According to Naomi Watts, the film's producers heard an interview on Spanish radio in which the family told their story of surviving the tsunami and decided to make a film based on it.
- When Lucas talks to a Swede desperately trying to find his son, he takes a pen and starts writing the boy's name with his left hand, but in the next shot he is writing it with his right hand.
- At the beginning of the film, where the children are playing table tennis, the shadow of tree leaves is clearly visible on the table, however, in the next scene, where we look at the same table from above, it is visible that the table is far from the trees and there is no shadow there.
- In the scene where Maria and Lucas are crossing the ruins, the wounds and bloodstains on Maria's back appear differently – sometimes there are more, sometimes fewer.
- In the scene where Henry says goodbye to the boys, the wounds and bloodstains on his face look different each time.
- Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor previously played characters in a relationship in the film "Stay" (2005).
- This film was one of the last films from the Spanish studio “Ciudad de la Luz” (City of Light). In October 2012, it announced its closure.
- When Daniel meets his father, the latter addresses him in Swedish, pronouncing his name as “Johan.” The actor who played the role of Daniel’s real name is Johan Sandberg, and the actor who played his father is his actual father – Jean-Roland Sandberg.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
