Should you watch this at weekend movie ticket prices? No.
Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? Yes.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 111 minutes (~1.75 hours)
“The Water Diviner” is part war film, part period drama, set in the early 1900s. It follows the quest of a distraught father who journeys to Turkey to find the bodies of his three sons who were drafted into the military. It stars Russell Crowe (Joshua Connor), Olga Kurylenko (Ayshe), Yilmaz Erdogan (Major Hasan), Jai Courney (Lt-Col Cyril Hughes), Ryan Corr (Arthur Connor), and Jacqueline McKenzie (Eliza Connor).
“The Water Diviner” is an ambitious attempt to be a symbolic and insightful movie, but somehow it doesn’t come together as well as it was conceived. It’s not for the lack of trying though – you can definitely see what the director’s intent was. The disparate elements of the film just don’t gel well together, resulting in a movie that falls short of being an epic.
Highlights
A charming friendship between Joshua and Hasan
As strange and awkward as their friendship may be, it still rings true and comes across as a genuine, authentic relationship borne of similar ideals. It’s no bromance, and it’s subtle and sincere nature helps restore your faith in humanity, showing us that the milk of human kindness can still be found in the most unlikely of places.
Strong anti-war themes
The war scenes are given especial attention to depict the atrocities that occur during armed conflict. It’s not so much the morality of war, as it is what it forces people to do, that makes you sit up and take notice. When placed in stark contrast with Joshua’s scenic search for his children, it makes the violence all the more horrific and glaring.
Letdowns
Sudden shift in tone in Act Three
For the first two thirds of the film, Joshua is a pensive, thoughtful soul who traverses a foreign a land to bring back the corpses of his children. It takes the time to establish setting, mood, and themes, coupled by sparing use of music.
Then in the third Act, it suddenly mutates into an action movie full of gunshots, chase scenes, and rip roaring adventures. Even the music changes into more exciting, adrenaline-pumping tunes. It’s jarring, unexpected, and makes it feel like two different movies were spliced together into one.
The alien attitude towards Turkey
The film takes a decidedly Western perspective to its portrayal of the Middle East, romanticising Turkey into a mystical country that is both inaccessible and desirable at the same time. It’s a very strange, archaic approach to be using in this day and age, and it comes across as slightly condescending.
Setting feels anachronistic
For most of the film, you’d think it takes place in the mid 1900s – but it turns out that it actually happens in the early 1900s. Perhaps its the choice of filter, the choice of set dressing, or the crisp cleanliness of the sets, but the locations feel too modern to have taken place in the 1900s.
“The Water Diviner” presents a universal story in an interesting setting, and has all the elements required of an epic quest for family. Yet it misses a critical link to pull all of the various segments of the film together, making this a rather average movie instead of the classic it could have been.
“The Water Diviner” opens in cinemas 7 May, 2015 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Singapore.
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