IMPOSSIBLE?

No, but its incredible that a film like The Impossible has been made so soon after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.
We can't blame Hollywood for this as it is a Spanish film but the arrogant attitude is the same.

The 2004 event was the 5th worst natural disaster in modern times and the worst Tsunami.
A quarter of a million people died and unknown numbers injured and deprived of homes and income.

The makers of The Impossible chose to tell the story of one family.

These wealthy middle class white people went to Thailand on holiday, got caught up in the tsunami, got separated, looked for each other and found each other.
There are long, long sequences of the various family members traipsing around flood wreckage (and miraculously discovering only one victim survivor - a little white boy), through towns and a hospital with a treacly build up of pathos. The hospital was full of injured people, seemingly all over-privileged white Europeans like this family.

The only indication of the possible real scale of the disaster was one shot of a truckload of dead 'natives' being carted off somewhere.

Dead and injured Europeans get transported by helpful and smiling 'natives' with a truck to them selves.

Dead natives' get dump-stacked in a truck and who knows what happens to them after that.

The real 'star' of the film is the tsunami and there are two good sequences that are well filmed showing the power of the water but these are relegated to almost a cameo appearance. Most of the film is about the family traipsing around flood wreckage ...........

I can understand the artistic device of using a real people story  surrounded by a major event but this could have been covered in a 15 minute short film.
I find it insulting with a seemingly callous disregard of the death, suffering and injury of hundreds of thousands of people for whom the memory is still raw as it was only 8 years ago.

We are expected to get emotionally connected to the family who fly in and, with the assistance of their insurance company fly out again to cleaner and safer climes after having got lost for a bit.

Give me a break.