Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona’s last film, The Orphanage, was very well-received when it was released a few years ago and found a large audience beyondSpain, earning praise from English-speaking critics as well, and taking almost m. at the international box office, an impressive feat for a horror film, particularly one in Spanish.
With The Impossible, Bayona makes what looks to be an impressive English-language debut, with the terrific Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts in the leads, and , reuniting with The Orphanage writer Sergio G. Sánchez. We saw the first poster for the film over a year ago at the end of 2010, and we’ve now got the first teaser trailer to share with you, via Collider.
“MARIA (Naomi Watts), HENRY (Ewan McGregor) and their three sons begin their winter vacation inThailand, looking forward to a few days in tropical paradise. But on the morning of December 26th, as the family relaxes around the pool after their Christmas festivities the night before, a terrifying roar rises up from the center of the earth. As Maria freezes in fear, a huge wall of black water races across the hotel grounds toward her.
Henry grabs the two youngest boys, SIMON and THOMAS, but it’s too late: the wave smashes into him with incredible force and dislodges his grip. Maria is pushed underwater, where she is crushed and battered by debris to the brink of death. She finally surfaces in a raging black sea, which has completely submerged her three-story hotel and the surrounding landscape. Maria gasps for breath while she tries to understand what has just happened, convinced that her family has been obliterated in the blink of an eye. But then, her eldest son, LUCAS (Tom Holland), surfaces a few meters ahead in the wild flood. Face-to-face with something unexpected and incomprehensible, she must fight against all odds for her child’s survival. And her own.”
The film is based on the true story of this family, who were caught in the tsunami and the aftermath that hit Thailandon December 26th, 2007, and from the scenes we see in this teaser trailer, I can’t imagine what it must have been like to go through. It looks to be a powerful film.
The trailer has been dubbed into Spanish, promoting the film in Bayona’s native country, and Twitch have kindly translated the text we see between the footage:
“On December 26, 2004, a devastating tsunami hit the coast of Southeast Asia.
The lives of thousands of families around the world changed forever.
This is the true story of one of these families.”
The Impossible hasn’t yet got a release date scheduled here or in the US, but hopefully it’s just a matter of time before it gets announced, because this looks like a film to look forward to.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTPE3xUnOY8′]
