Recommended
But, most importantly, the use of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which is the backdrop the director has chosen to tell this story, feels exploitative as the tragedy that followed hardly registers on screen. To his credit, the director stages the tsunami quite well and the visual effects do not come across as tacky. But in zooming on his leads, the director blurs the scale of the tragedy. In fact, for a while, Aaron even forgets Socrates, his childhood friend, and only searches for Kayal amidst the debris. And, Kayal, too, totally forgets about the girls who rushed out to the beach to help her. At this point, we lose our empathy for these characters and that is the film’s biggest tragedy.