The Water Diviner (2014)
Directed by Russell Crowe
In 1919, Australian farmer Joshua Connor travels to Turkey to discover the fate of his three sons, reported missing in action. Holding on to hope, Joshua must travel across the war-torn landscape to find the truth and his own peace.
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What critics say influenced The Water Diviner
Inspired by a true story, the script, by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios, channels war sagas such as Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Peter Weir's homegrown Gallipoli to sometimes conventional and sentimental effect.
The script by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios seems inspired to some extent by “Saving Private Ryan.”
With echoes of everything from Gallipoli and Saving Private Ryan to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the result is a schizo couple of hours at the multiplex.
He even went ahead and directed it himself, but unfortunately The Water Diviner is not an Australian Saving Private Ryan.
That all this should serve mainly as backdrop to a brawny man's journey of heroic healing, with its echoes of " Dances with Wolves " by way of "The Quiet Man," makes the closing dedication to wartime dead seem tone-deaf.
It’s a wide screen (some theaters are showing it in IMAX), sprawling epic with interesting locales (well dressed by production designer Christopher Kennedy), some stunning visuals, thanks to the Oscar-winning director of photography Andrew Lesnie (2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), and a truly absorbing, even intimate, story.