“I was supposed to guide them into manhood. I failed.”
Directed by: Russell Crowe
Written by: Andrew Knight, Andrew Anastasios
Starring: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Yilmaz Erdogan, Jai Courtney
The H-Bomb: Four years after the Battle of Gallipoli, one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War I, an Australian father, Connor (Russell Crowe), arrives in Turkey to bring back the bodies of his three sons who were killed during the lengthy engagement. Initially, he is blown off by the British officials there, who tell him that there are literally hundreds of thousands of bodies there that may never be identified, and that locating his sons, will be, by all practicality, impossible.
However, Connor does meet one Turkish officer, Major Hasan (Yilmaz Erdogan), who reluctantly agrees to help him. Along the way, Connor also crosses paths with a widowed hotel owner, Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), and her young son, Orhan (Dylan Georgiades), and becomes involved in their lives in unexpected ways. Despite meeting resistance around every corner in this strange, faraway land, Connor must press on, because he is not only searching for his lost sons, but for closure, as well.
With The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe joins the likes of Clint Eastwood and Mel Gibson by throwing his hat into the directorial arena. And for a first timer, it is an impressively accomplished effort. The story itself is simple enough, though the scope and canvas are quite ambitious. Being that Crowe is a proud Australian, it makes sense that he would be drawn to this material, which is set against what must be a painful chapter in that country’s history. Not that the story is exclusively Australian, as a parent’s search for a missing child is about as universal as a story can get.
Crowe guides us through the picture, with his assured, straight-forward direction and a keen eye for detail. The Turkish and Australian locales, lushly photographed by late Academy Award winning cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies), give us a vivid sense of place and time, as the two cultures are, perhaps a bit obviously, constantly being contrasted. The film moves at a relaxed but steady pace, as the two hour narrative is never rushed, nor does it ever drag. The battle sequences are brief but visceral and appropriately ugly, with one flashback, in which a character dies very, very slowly, that is particularly disturbing.
As skilled as Crowe proves to be behind the camera, that takes nothing away from his abilities in front of it, as he delivers one of his best performances in years. Connor is a man of quiet dignity, who is guilt ridden for having encouraged his sons to go to war in the first place, and that comes through in Crowe’s understated yet emotionally resonant performance. He’s not quite the mega-star that he was a decade ago, but he’s still a fine actor who can carry a movie in a way that very few can.
Despite Crowe’s A-game efforts on both sides of the camera, ultimately The Water Diviner is never as moving as it clearly aspires to be. Most of the blame can be placed on the script, by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios, that keeps us at an emotional distance from Connor and his quest. His need to find his sons is prompted by the death of someone else close to him, but because we barely get to know this someone else, we’re never made to feel anything when they die. Also, the subplot involving Kurylenko’s hotel owner feels entirely extraneous, because no movie nowadays is complete without a pseudo-romance, I suppose. Ultimately, the film’s greatest shortcoming is that when it reaches the end of Connor’s arduous journey, it just isn’t as cathartic as it was obviously intended to be.
Still, its flawed screenplay notwithstanding, The Water Diviner is a damn fine film, and quite the formidable directing debut for Mr. Crowe. Having worked extensively with the likes of Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, and Peter Weir, it’s safe to assume that Crowe watched them carefully and took a few notes. With The Water Diviner, it’s pretty apparent. It is a visually stunning epic that tells an all-too-human story about loss and redemption, and serves as proof that as a filmmaker, Crowe is a genuine force to be reckoned with.
