Come What May

Moulin Rouge!

Director: Baz Luhrmann 

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, John Leguizamo

Released: June 1, 2001

Viewed in theaters: June 10, 2001

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (lost to A Beautiful Mind)

Best Actress - Nicole Kidman (lost to Halle Berry for Monster's Ball)

Best Cinematography (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (won)

Best Costume Design (won)

Best Sound (lost to Black Hawk Down)

Best Film Editing (lost to Black Hawk Down)

Best Makeup (lost to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring)

 There are a lot of things I really like about Moulin Rouge!, but there are also a few things I don't like about it. We'll start with the positives first. It's easy to see why this movie won Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design because it is a visually stunning film. Every set, every detail, every costume is a feast for the eyes. Even though this movie was filmed in Sydney in 1999/2000, I certainly felt like I was in Paris in 1900. I also really love the music and all the songs (probably because the majority of them were already songs I was already familiar with), which is a good thing since this is a musical! I would also like to personally thank this movie for only having the actors sing the songs and not sing every single line of dialogue, which is done in Les Miserables, a movie I hate and loathe with all my heart. (I wanted to go in liking it, I really did, but we're not here to talk about that movie). I own the soundtrack to this movie and I really like it because I get to hear the full versions of the songs. While a few songs do get fully sung in the movie (especially if they're sung by our star-crossed lovers, Christian and Satine (Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman)), there are quite a few we only hear a snippets of here or there, so it's nice to have the soundtrack to listen to the entire songs. There are so many songs in the movie that they made a second soundtrack, but I don't own that one. My favorite song is "Come What May", the love song sung by our two leads. It is so, so, good, the perfect romantic song. Whenever you hear this song, you just want to burst out and sing it. Well, I do anyway. ("Listen to my heart, can you hear it sing? Telling me to give you everything!") I especially love how it builds up in the end with the choir singing in the background and then bam! It just ends. I love that song!  It is the only original song from the movie, although it wasn't nominated for a Best Song Oscar (as you can tell it wasn't from the list above of nominations it received). This is because the song was originally written for Romeo + Juliet, the previous movie Luhrmann had directed, but it was never used. Therefore, it was ineligible, although I don't see what the big deal was. I think it should have been nominated! It would have won! It's kind of ironic that the big musical of that year didn't get any Oscar music nominations.

I think they tried to get all the young MTV audience to see the film with getting five big music stars (Christina Aguliera, Pink, Mya, L'il Kim, and Missy Elliott) to sing Lady Marmalade (and I will admit, at first I had no idea this was a cover of a Patti Labelle song!). The song is actually in the movie for about a minute, if that. It might be longer, but they definitely do not play the entire thing. I remember this video being on MTV all the time when it was released. It's super cringe-worthy if you go back now and watch it. The only good part is Christina's over the top voice and crazy-ass curly blonde wig. I think it was also released as a single on the radio, but don't quote me on that. This song made everyone know what "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" meant even if they didn't know a lick of French.

"Come What May" may be my favorite song, but I also really love the mash-up of love songs Christian and Satine sing to each other called "Elephant Love Medley" (which gets it name since Satine lives in the statue of an elephant.  By the way, have you ever noticed it looks a lot bigger from the inside than it does from the outside?) It begins with the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" and ends with Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" (I say Houston's version, and not Dolly Parton's because they definitely belt it out ala Whitney) with songs like "Heroes" by David Bowie, "Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong", by Joe Cocker and "I Was Made For Loving You" by Kiss sprinkled throughout. And of course you have the singing moon serenading them at the end. The moon has to be a homage to Georges Melies (right time, right country), but I am always reminded of Mac Tonight, the singing moon in the McDonald's commercials from the '80s. I know it's totally weird, but that's what I think of when I see a singing moon!

Another song I really love is when Christian sings "Your Song" to Satine. Being as this is a musical, it's a good thing I love so many songs! There's a mix up with him and the Duke (Richard Roxburgh), a man powerful enough to make her a "real actress" and if she seduces and sleeps with him, then her dream will become a reality. However, Christian is not the Duke, but rather just a lowly writer who wants Satine to read his play because she's the star of the show, "The Sparkling Diamond". The thinking is if Satine likes it, then she'll promote it to Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent), the owner of the Moulin Rouge. Satine is acting like a damn fool in her "seducing", but when Christian starts singing, she immediately stops her barking and writhing on the floor and really takes notice of him for the first time. This clip is a great example of how visually stunning the film is...you see the titular red mill, the set of the elephant room (inside and out), the singing moon, and just the all-around prettiness of the movie.

How can that scene not a put a smile on your face? I'm not the biggest fan of Ewan McGregor, many of his movies I either haven't seen or just didn't care for, but I can't blame Satine for looking so smitten when he starts singing and continues to be enamored with him throughout the song. However, when the song ends and she exclaims that she's in love with a young, handsome, talented Duke, he has to let her down by telling her he's just a writer and she's not interested in him. Here is this super cute guy who just sang her a love song and the music scratches (it does, literally) when he tells her he's not the Duke and suddenly she's not interested anymore. Crazy redhead!

However, don't fret, because Christian does win her heart when they sing the songs in the "Elephant Love Medley" and they fall in love. Just like in Baz Luhrmann's interpretation of  Romeo + Juliet when they fall in love by looking at each other through a fish tank. This makes the Duke, who wants the beautiful Satine for himself, very jealous.

The play Christian has written is the story within the story, but with much more Indian influences. It's the same premise as the movie: a young woman must choose between a poor young sitar player who loves her dearly or the powerful Maharaja. Obviously Christian took the saying "write what you know" to heart. In the play, the character Satine plays chooses the sitar player because she is in love with him, but the Duke is outraged by this and demands that it be changed so she chooses the more powerful man because it rings more true.

Now I will tell you about the things I did not like so much about the movie. If you can get past the first fifteen minutes, then you're home free. I say this because the first fifteen minutes are probably the hardest to get through. We're quickly introduced to Christian and what his story is and why he's come to Paris. It's not that I mind they tell this quickly to get to the meat of the story, I just hate the way it's shot. I swear, they must change shots 100 times in a minute. It's just very quick, quick, quick and it gave me whiplash. It has a very frenetic pace about it and there are certain times where I'm thinking, "What the hell is going on"? This includes Kylie Minogue as a fairy. (Yes, I realize Christian is seeing this because he had just drank some absinthe.) I guess the point is to make like the viewer seem like THEY just drank some absinthe! Once Satine is first introduced, the cameras linger on her for awhile and from then on the film moves as a more manageable pace. It does pick us back in its frenzy state during the "Roxanne" tango scene, but at least that's only a few minutes and makes sense in the context of the movie.

And even though I think Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman are great as Christian and Satine and I can't imagine anyone else playing them and I think they're super cute whenever they sing to each other, I just couldn't get invested in their relationship. It may be that I never bought that they fall in love with each other after just singing a song to each other. The movie begins with Christian telling the audience, "The woman I loved....is dead." It literally starts out by telling the audience that one of the main characters will die. Also, the way he says it is soooooo over dramatic that I laugh whenever I hear it. Probably not the emotion they were trying to evoke! You know, I have to wonder if anyone got mad because this movie was "spoiled" for them even though it's the first thing you find out when you watch the movie. That would be hilarious. I can't even remember if I knew Nicole Kidman's character died in this before I saw it. However, I certainly knew the minute the film started! So when Satine DOES die (she had consumption), it never makes me cry. And, if for any reason you may forget that she dies, they definitely remind you throughout the movie what with her either fainting (she falls off of a  swing perched pretty high at one point, but luckily is caught) or coughing up blood every now and then. I have watched this movie a handful of times and not once has it ever made me cry. I think the closest scene where I do tear up is during the big performance when Satine starts singing "Come What May" to Christian.

Zidler tells Satine that she "must hurt him to save him" and that she needs to tell Christian she doesn't love him anymore and for him to leave. Otherwise, the Duke will kill him. She does this and tells Christian that she wants to be with the Duke, but he knows something is up and refuses to leave without learning the truth. He shows up during the big performance and finds Satine behind the curtain getting ready for her next scene. He demands her to tell him that she doesn't love him. Meanwhile, one of the Duke's cronies have found them and is about to shoot Christian, but the curtain opens and they find themselves on stage. Zidler, who is playing the Maharaja, tells the audience that he is not fooled and even though he's changed his disguise and shaved off his beard, he knows it's the penniless sitar player. You have to give him props for coming up with that so fast. The audience seems satisfied with this and is enjoying the show which is not the show anymore, but rather real life being played out before them. It is very amusing watching their reactions. When Christian says to the Duke, "This woman is yours now. I've paid my whore!" and throws some money down, everyone gasps. Christian, who has been hurt by Satine, tells her some pretty harsh words and walks off stage and down the aisle of seats. He's crying, she's crying. One of the main performers (played by John Leguizamo), who is in the rafters, shouts out, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return!" Satine starts singing "Come What May" and Christian stops and turns around, the starts sining. This is the only scene that really gets me. They're all singing and in love and everything is great and the audience is eating this up. The only one who isn't loving it is the Duke and he sees and grabs the gun and is about to shoot Christian, but his plans are thwarted when Zidler punches him in the face and he ends up tossing the gun which goes through a window and hits the Eiffel Tower with a clink. Everyone is happy, but then, oh yeah, we're reminded Satine isn't long for this world as she dies on stage in his arms while the audience applauds, thinking it's part of the show. Poor Christian. He really did love her until her dying day. Oh my God, I just went to Tumblr to check out what people were writing/posting about Moulin Rouge! and someone wrote, "I would like to die like Satine in Moulin Rouge: being applauded, covered in petals, and in the arms of Ewan McGregor." Haha, that's good, that made me laugh.

I was surprised to find out that Baz Luhrmann has only directed five movies in the span of twenty years. I would have guessed a lot more! Before Moulin Rouge! he directed Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet and after there was Australia and The Great Gatsby. I would rank his movies, but I can't because I've never seen The Great Gatsby and it's been way too long since I've seen Strictly Ballroom and Australia. The only thing I remember about Australia is when Hugh Jackman hosted the Oscars and talked about Robert Downey Jr. being nominated for an Oscar for Tropic Thunder and that he is "an American actor playing an Australian actor playing an African-American character" and then made a joke and said that he is "an Australian playing an Australian in a movie called Australia." Yes, that made me laugh very much. I would say with certainty that Moulin Rouge! is Luhrmann's most known movie (although, I guess some people would argue that R+J is). Moulin Rouge! is an insane movie at times and just never stops, but at least it knows what kind of movie it is and embraces it.

Tale as Old as Time

Beauty and the Beast

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellan, Emma Thompson, Josh Gad, Audra McDonald, Stanley Tucci

Released: March 17, 2017

Viewed in theaters: March 21, 2017

After I saw this movie, I tweeted, "I saw a movie where Emma Watson plays a character who loves to read and spends most of her time in a castle surrounded by enchanted objects." I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice those Harry Potter parallels! Beauty and the Beast is the latest of a slew of animated movies to be turned into live action films. And so far, I believe it to be the best. Now I may be biased because Beauty and the Beast, the one that came out in 1991 and is the ONLY animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture before there was an Best Animated Movie category and before they allowed up to ten slots for Best Movie, is my favorite animated Disney movie. I have also seen it twice in the past six years while it's been over a decade since I last saw Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and God knows when was the last time I saw The Jungle Book. I've seen all of their remakes and Beauty and the Beast is my favorite.

Let's be clear here: as much as I enjoyed this live action remake of the 1991 classic, the animated film is still so much superior and remains the better of the two. I've heard people say that this movie is an exact replica of the animated movie which is true...but also not. First of all this movie is longer by about 40 minutes, so obviously it has extra scenes. There's some backstory with Belle's mom (she's not present because she died from some disease) and we do get a few more scenes with Belle and the Beast (just like with the animated movie, I don't think we ever learn what his name is, ever!). Another reason for the added length is the number of songs. They keep all of the songs from the original (which won the Oscar for Best Score and Best Song for the title song), so yay! Believe me, I was biting my lip from singing because I wanted to sing along so bad! I grew up with all these songs; I have the soundtrack and I remember my friend's mom would play it her car when she would drive us somewhere. You better believe I know all the words to "Belle" ("Little town, it's a quiet village; everyday like the one before; little town, full of little people; waking up to say...."); I know all the words to "Gaston" ("No one's slick as Gaston, no one's quick as Gaston, no one's neck's as incredibly thick as Gaston's"); I definitely know all the words to "Be Our Guest" ("Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test. Tie your napkin round your neck, cherie, and we'll provide the rest!"); I know all the words to "Something There" ("New and a bit alarming! Who'd have ever thought that this could be? True, that he's no Prince Charming, but there's something in him that I simply didn't see"); and, of course, I know all the words to "Beauty and the Beast" ("Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme, barely even friends, then somebody bends, unexpectedly)." My favorite number was Belle...even though it did sound like Hermione was singing to me! During the reprise of that song, I did love when Belle tied a handkerchief around her head while singing "his little wife", which is what she did in the movie. And, also, just like in the movie, she ran out into an open field ala Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. It was much more awe-inspiring in the animated movie because in this one you could clearly tell it was a green screen. I did laugh a lot during the "Gaston" number when Le Fou is spelling Gaston's name and sings, "GAST...T...it just occurred to me that I'm illiterate and have never had to spell his name!"

However, those familiar tunes aren't the only songs in the movie. There are quite a handful of other songs. They're okay, but not very memorable. I couldn't sing you anything from them, but that might be unfair since I've known the original songs for the last 25 years. I had just assumed the songs I didn't know were from the Broadway play, but they're not. They were specifically written for the movie. Celine Dion sings one of them (called "How Does a Moment Last Forever") at the end credits which is a nice throwback since she sang the pop version of the title song. This time they have two current pop singers in Ariana Grande and John Legend who sing the pop version of the song. I think they're both talented (well, I might be a little too kind to Ms. Grande as I've only liked one of her songs), but I am not feeling their version of that song at all. Honestly, I don't even know why they even recorded a new pop version of the song. The reason they did it for the animated movie with Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson was to put it on the radio and I remember hearing that song quite a few times on the radio back then. Has anyone heard the Grande/Legend version on the radio? Has it even had any air play? It's not even the first song you hear during the ending credits! I've only heard it on Spotify. Of course, if they DIDN'T have a new pop version of the song, then I'm sure I would be complaining about that, so I should just shut up!

The characters are all the same characters from the original that we all love (or love to hate!) You have Emma Watson as the beautiful and bookish Belle who lives with her father, Maurice (Kevin Kline). Gaston (Luke Evans) is the arrogant and egotistical hunter who wants to marry her because she's the most beautiful girl in town (and that makes her the best! And doesn't he deserve the best?) and Le Fou (Josh Gad) is his goofy sidekick. There's a funny scene where we see Gaston saying, "You are the most gorgeous thing" and the camera pans back to reveal he's looking in a mirror. Even Philippe the horse is in the movie!

Of course, those were all the human characters; it was the inanimate animated objects that I was more concerned about. For the most part, I think they did a pretty good job bringing these everyday household objects to life. I loved the way they did Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), but I was SO DISAPPOINTED he didn't make his joke about, "Like I say, if it isn't Baroque, don't fix it!" Boo, movie! Boo for not having that awesome line! Chip was so cute and I loved he did his blowing a bubble trick for Belle. It's hard to imagine anybody other than Angela Lansbury voicing the teapot, Mrs. Potts, but Emma Thompson in this movie is a very good actress to get. There's a scene in the movie when Mrs. Potts get offended when Le Fou calls her the little tea cup's grandmother (which was not in the animated movie) and they do make a good point about how weird it was that Chip was Mrs. Potts' son rather than her grandson. When you see her in the animated movie as a human, she's this gray-haired granny type and Chip is this little five year old boy! They should have just made her his grandmother. Audra McDonald voices the wardrobe and we see her at the beginning of the movie before she changes into her inanimate object as someone who ofter sang and entertained at the Prince's fancy parties. Her husband is the maestro (played by Stanley Tucci) and he is turned into a piano, a character who wasn't in the 1991 film. Lumiere is my favorite character in the animated movie, but something about him in this movie didn't work for me. Ewan McGregor voices him and he's fine, though I don't understand why they just didn't get a French actor to voice him (though, to be fair, Jerry Orbach wasn't French either). It's very interesting that there's only one character with a French accent when the story is set in France! Ewan McGregor does fine on the singing too, but listen to this movie's version of Be Our Guest and the original and you will hear that he sings it a bit differently than Jerry Orbach did. Just listen to the way they both sing, "Try the gray stuff, it's delicious! Don't believe me? Ask the dishes!" But it's not Lumiere's talking or singing voice that I find offputting; it's the way he was designed. I absolutely hate the way he was designed! Now Cogsworth and Mrs. Potts aren't exactly designed the exact same way as they are in the animated movie, but you at least you know it's a clock and a teapot. In the animated movie, Mrs. Pott's mouth is right under the spout so it looks like the spout is her nose. In this movie, her face is painted on the side of the teapot. Lumiere has two designs: the one when he's an actual candelabra (and an actual prop so the actors could carry it around) and one when he's the CGI moving character. And I wouldn't mind that at all except for that fact when he's a talking object, he doesn't even look like a candlestick! He's this weird doll-sized brass man who has candlesticks right above his hands and his head! He doesn't look like a damn candelabra! It drives me absolutely crazy! I suppose they did it this way because it was easier, but ugh!

They must have been worried that Gaston wasn't unlikeable enough because they created a new storyline where, after Maurice has told the townspeople about the Beast and Gaston has asked him to take him to the castle where Bell is trapped, he punches him in the face once it's clear that Maurice can't find the castle, then ties him up to a tree and leaves him to the wolves. Another added storyline is that the Beast has this magical book, where, if you close your eyes and touch the page, you can wish to be anywhere you want to be and he and Belle go to Paris, the place of her childhood. We also get more information about the Beast's background in that he used to be a very sweet young boy up until his mother died, then his awful father groomed him to be a jerk just like him. In the opening scene of the movie, he is having a fancy party with all his fancy friends and turns away an old, haggard woman who is seeking shelter from a storm. She reveals herself to be this beautiful enchantress (personally she freaked me out...I thought she looked like Cate Blanchett as Galadriel when she becomes possessed for that split second in Lord of the Rings) and warned the Beast not to let looks be deceiving and thus cast that spell on him (and the other people in the castle).

Yule Ball!

Just like in the animated movie, Belle discovers the enchanted rose that is keeping the spell over the Beast and the other people in the castle who have turned into objects. The Beast yells at her and she runs away and is almost killed by the pack of wolves in the woods. The Beast saves her, but is attacked by the wolves and she nurses him back to health. She is tempted to get back on her horse and escape and she easily could, but she knows he needs her help. After that, they learn more things about each other, such as their love for books and this is when the Beast shows her his library stock full of books because he thinks she should read something better than Romeo and Juliet, her favorite book. Not gonna lie: the library in the 1991 movie was much more impressive; though I guess it is way easier to draw an amazing library than to build one! Same goes for the ballroom. Yes, the ballroom for the dance scene is beautiful with its marble floors and many chandleries, but it doesn't hold a candle to the grand ballroom in the animated movie. That scene remains one of my favorite all time scenes in any animated movie, ever. They should have just cut to the animated version during the dance scene, then cut back when it was over. Because that wouldn't have been odd at all!

The Beast lets Belle see her father in the magic mirror he has and he lets her go when she sees that he has been locked up. He apologizes to the objects, but they understood he let her go because he loved her. It's a little different in this movie, because, and correct me if I'm wrong, in the 1991 movie, if the spell wasn't broken, then everyone would remain the household object they were, but they would still be able to talk (and dance and sing); they would just never be human again. In this movie, the Beast would die and all the objects would turn into literal inanimate objects: no more talking or singing or dancing for them. Belle learns her father has been locked up for his talk about a Beast and talking teacups and a castle full of magic. (This place is a little crazy if you think about it; even Hogwarts didn't have talking teacups!) Belle defends her father and says that there IS a Beast and this makes Gaston and the others want to kill him and they lock up Belle with her father when she tries to stop them. Of course, she ends up getting them out and goes to stop the Beast from being killed. All the townspeople are in the castle, fighting with the objects. There was a scary moment where Mrs. Potts falls and you think she's going to smash to the floor, but she is caught by Le Fou who has decided to join their side because Gaston, he's learned, is not a very nice person. Belle is too late, though, as Gaston has shot him and she tearfully says "Come back, I love you!" to the dying creature. The last petal on the rose has fallen and all the objects are no longer alive. However, the possessed Galadriel-like enchantress has come to the castle and has witnessed Belle admitting her love for the Beast, so she lifts the spell and the Beast comes alive and becomes a human and all the inanimate objects return to their human forms. Whew! The townspeople are still on the castle ground and we find out that Mrs. Pott's husband and Cogsworth's wife were among them, so that was a bit of a new twist. The movie ends with Belle and the Beast dancing to Audra McDonald as the opera singer singing "Beauty and the Beast" and I'm thinking, "Ooh, I bet Mrs. Potts is mad that she's singing HER song!", but then she sings the next verse. I absolutely loved the dress Belle was wearing in this scene.

So this movie gets point knocked off for 1)Too many songs I didn't care about, 2)Weird Lumiere design, 3)No "If it isn't Baroque, then don't fix it!" line. Other than that, I give it high marks. 

Wave of Destruction

The Impossible
Director: J.A. Bayona
Cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland
Released: December 21, 2012

Oscar nominations:
Best Actress - Naomi Watts (lost to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Lining's Playbook)

This is a true story about a European family vacationing in Thailand for Christmas when they were struck by the 2004 tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people. I remember this tsunami and that it killed many people, but what I hadn't realize was how massive it was and how many countries it hit. I thought that Thailand, Indonesia, India, and other countries in that area were hit, but there were also countries on the east coast of Africa that were also hit like Somalia, Madagascar, Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa! Not only are some of those countries not that close to each other, but they are nowhere near Thailand and Indonesia! They didn't suffer as much damage or as many casualties as the Southeast Asian countries that were hit, but that still shocked me. And I had also thought that the tsunami had hit every place at once, but it hadn't. It first hit Indonesia, which had the most casualties, then it hit Thailand and India two hours later and the African countries even later.

The family the movie is centered around - a couple, Maria and Henry (portrayed by Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor) with three young boys (the oldest is no more than 12; the youngest around 5) is British, but the real-life family that went through this awful ordeal were actually Spanish. I don't mind that they changed the nationality of the family. True, they could have easily cast Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas and three young Spanish boys as the family, but then you would have to have the movie in Spanish and I'm guessing the filmmakers thought it would be better for it to be in English to get a bigger audience. I should mention that the director, producer, and writer are all Spanish and they collaborated with Maria Belon, the woman who Naomi Watts plays, so if all of them are okay with a real-life Spanish family being portrayed by a non-Spanish family, then it shouldn't be that big of a deal. And what country they are from really shouldn't matter...their nationality and what language they speak is not important in the grand scheme of things.

The Bennett family has gone to Thailand for a family vacation over the Christmas holiday. Apparently there were a lot of Europeans who were there on holiday when this tragedy occurred. I don't know if this is a common thing for Europeans to take family vacations to other continents, but to me, that idea is just foreign. I have never been, nor do I know anybody who has taken a family vacation to an entirely different country, let alone continent. Now the family is very well off as the mother is a doctor and the father works in business, but why not just go to the many beaches that Europe has to offer? They don't have family in Thailand and it's their first time there so I'm not really sure why they chose to go there, but where they are staying is a very nice resort for people with money.

We see them having a great time, playing on the beach and swimming in the ocean and the pool (why do you need a pool when you are already on the beach?) and enjoying their Christmas together. The day after Christmas they are all out by the pool when suddenly strange things start happening. The wind picks up. Birds are rapidly flying away from the ocean. A small lizard quickly hides underground. One of Maria's pages from her book rips away and lands on a glass wall. When she walks over to pick it up, we see the reflection behind her and she looks at it in horror as she sees the disturbing sight of an 80-foot palm tree just disappear as though it's easily been toppled over, and then sees more trees disappear. That was a really scary and effective image. Before anyone has time to react (Maria quickly yells at her husband who is in the pool with the two youngest boys), this huge wave appears and engulfs the resort.

The effects are very impressive and it's horrifying to think that this actually happened and this family went through this. But as I was watching, I couldn't help thinking why nobody was warned about this and why they weren't trying to evacuate the place. I watched a documentary on the tsunami and found out why this was. There are about 80 censors in the Pacific Ocean that alert a tsunami detection center in Hawaii if there is a change in the ocean that could cause a tsunami and then they can alert other countries that could be affected by this and give people plenty of time to evacuate beaches and get to safety. At the time of the 2004 tsunami, such a system did not exist in the Indian Ocean and there was only time to alert the nations of Africa when the tsunami struck.

Maria and Lucas, the oldest son, are separated from Henry and the two younger boys, Simon and Thomas. When watching this movie, I wasn't familiar with this family's story and had no idea if they all survived or not. I figured at least one of the adults had survived to be able to tell their story, but it you watch the trailer (which I did after I watched the movie), you already know that everyone survives the initial impact of the wave. Surprisingly everyone gets out unscathed aside from a few bruises and scratches. Maria gets the worse of the injuries. She is poked in the stomach by branches while the water is rushing all around her and when she and Lucas are walking to find a tree to climb up, there is a huge piece of skin hanging off the back of her leg and you see a huge chunk of her muscle. (The make-up artists did a great job.) Surprisingly, Maria never really cried out in pain (except when she's climbing the tree) and I figured that it had to be due to shock and the will to survive. The huge chunk of missing skin is not the most graphic part of the movie. No, that would be the scene where Maria is in the hospital and throws up. It was so graphic that I thought she was throwing up her intestines (I know, I know), but later found out it was branches and leaves she had swallowed.

The film focuses on Maria and Lucas quite a lot during the first third, but then turns its attention to the others. I thought they were going to show the tsunami through their POV, but instead we find out what happened to them through a quick narrative: Henry was scared when he couldn't find his sons, but was quickly relieved when he saw them in a tree. How these two young boys managed to get out with barely a scrape and quickly found a way out of harm's way, (with presumably no help), I'll never know, but the movie doesn't think it's important to show us how they survived, but that they just did. Henry sends his two children on a bus that is going to the mountains and asks a woman to look after them so he can continue his search for his wife and eldest son. I understand that he wanted to continue to look for them in case they needed help, but I thought he should have stayed with the children he already knew were alive so they would at least still have one live parent left. The best scenario would be that someone had already found Maria and Lucas and was helping them (which was what happened). The worst scenario would be that they are both dead and there would be nothing he could do about it anyway.

This movie made me cry several times so I'm glad I watched it alone in the privacy of my apartment. While Thomas is in the hospital he helps family members be reunited and tries to help find others' loved one. One Swedish father and son are reunited and I bawled. I bawled when Henry called family members back home to tell them he was okay but didn't know the fate of his wife and Lucas yet. And I bawled when they were all reunited, though, I have to wonder how accurate their reunion was. It seemed awfully convenient that Henry ended up at the hospital his wife and son were at, plus the two young boys were there too. I have to imagine that this did not happen in real life, but it was more cinematic and dramatic this way. It still amazes me that this actually happened to this family and they are all very lucky to be alive!