Norwegian disaster film takes direct approach
It turns out you don’t need to destroy the world, the northern hemisphere or even greater Los Angeles to craft a tense, watchable thriller — a tiny hamlet in Norway, population 250, will do.
Director Roar Uthaug sets his tale in Geiranger, a picturesque tourist destination at the head of a 15-kilometre fiord. Local geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) has just accepted a job in the city. He, his wife (Ane Dahl Torp) and two children are preparing to leave. The local geology, however, has other plans.
Much like last year’s San Andreas, the basic science behind The Wave is sound. The local mountain is indeed in motion, and a huge avalanche and subsequent tsunami is not a matter of if but when.
Mind you, in San Andreas The Rock was the hero; here the rock is the villain.
A farewell party for Kristian at the disaster early-warning centre provides all the information we’ll later need. Residents will have 10 minutes’ warning if anything happens. The wave will be 80 metres high. (That’s right, America — the end of the world will be in metric!) Fortunately, Kristian’s wristwatch has a countdown timer and an altimeter. Unfortunately, his wife is pulling one last shift at the local hotel, which sits just a few metres above sea level.
And of course Kristian is the first one, and for a while the only one, to suspect that a disaster is imminent. His former boss is incredulous at the notion of sounding an alarm: “Cancel tourist season?”
When the mountain moves, we find the family split up, each parent struggling to keep a child alive by whatever means they can. Kristian’s wife’s predicament actually resembles an old submarine thriller.
The Wave is most notable for what it doesn’t do. Unlike many an American epic, there is relatively little tension between the spouses, and no romantic interloper in the wings. The parental heroism remains on a human scale. And yet Uthaug also makes a conscious decision to show, even linger on, the bodies of ordinary people who have been caught in the deluge. The images are disturbing, but they ground the story.
And the actors are the real deal. Joner, who had a small part in The Revenant (no, he was not the bear) is believable as a frightened but resolute father. And Torp, who did such beautiful work in the Norwegian drama 1001 Grams, proves every bit his equal.
And the wave itself deserves mention for best supporting effect. It’s not an earthquake you can feel across the continent, or a world-ending catastrophe. But when it’s bearing down on you, it turns out that 80 metres of water is more than enough.