Review of The Water Diviner (2014) by Akshay H — 30 Jun 2015

Heartfelt story of fatherhood.

The Water Diviner is a heartfelt story of a father searching for his sons who went missing during war. Joshua Connor (Russel Crowe) is an Australian farmer whom the title addresses being the one able to find water beneath any land surface. His three sons are speculated dead in the 1915's Battle of Gallipoli, Turkey but no bodies are located or facts are known. Connor decides to go to Turkey to find out fate of his sons as a promise to his wife who commits suicide losing all hope. After reaching Turkey he finds a nice lodge run by Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko) in Constatinople. They slowly start getting to close to each and the romantic side of the story is quite predictable. Apart from that we have a Turkish Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan) who for reasons unknown tries to help Connor with his search.

I felt the film was strong with the drama and emotions, also the depiction of intense war scenes made it more engaging. There were many back and forth shifts and flashbacks which may put you off but the screenplay doesn't lose its flow. Some of the flashbacks of Joshua with his sons were heartwarming. The camera work with the Turkish locale and music was simply beautiful! I just wished they didn't dwell that much into romance aspect or they could have made it more authentic. Anyways Olga Kurylenko looked nice. Narrative was straightforward and a few scenes here and there felt clichéd. Despite all that, Russel Crowe gives a master performance carrying the weight of the film on his shoulders all the way with his quest for his sons. The times when the script focused on that it was really good, the rest not so much. Overall, it was a good enough film based on war-drama and fatherhood.

RATING: [3/5].