Disaster flicks, a tradition as old as Hollywood itself, may be more topical today than in years past. As climate change raises the levels of the sea, Mother Earth is fighting back. But there is a fine line here. Anyone who saw footage of the Fukushima earthquake or the Thai tsunami understands that such utter destruction and loss of life isn’t a laughing matter. Then why see films like San Andreas or the Norwegian import, The Wave? Even as The New Yorker sent the country into a tizzy over the impending Cascadian quake set to destroy the Pacific Northwest, we still like to watch shit blow up and get destroyed.
Or is it the kernel of hope these movies instill? The one family we can cheer for that survives while everyone around them perishes. With its minimal budget ($8 million), The Wave does a great job setting up its cataclysmic disaster. Norway’s entry for the best foreign film Oscar, The Wave ultimately stumbles once its titular flood hits, exposing a story predicated on cliché and budgetary restraints.
When the movie begins, we learn that unsteady mountains in Norway can collapse, causing the country’s legendary fjords to swell, sending out waves of destruction to the nearby villages. We meet geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) on his last day of work at Geiranger, an idyllic tourist town that happens to sit precariously next to one of these unstable mountains. Kristian has accepted a job with an oil company, but is still deeply concerned that the town is at risk, a fear his co-workers at the local seismology center do not seem to share. His wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp), who works at a lakeside hotel, is ready for the move. It appears Kristian is more interested in the mountains than his family.
It is easy to sympathize with Kristian, especially since we know the film won’t end without some sort of tidal wave wiping out the town. Joner does a good job making us feel for Kristian, as the film’s first act shows the geologist struggling to say goodbye to the town, job and mountains he loves. The build-up to the disaster is tense. Director Roar Uthaug, along with screenwriters Harald Rosenløw-Eeg and John Kåre Raake, don’t sacrifice character development in the early part of the film. We know that Kristian has reluctantly taken a job he does not want and that Idun wants her husband to spend more time at home. Meanwhile, teenage son Sondre (Jonas Hoff Ofteboro) is also struggling, unwilling to leave his beloved mountain town for the bustle of the city.
But then the wave comes and washes away any favor Uthaug earned as the script descends into predictable cliché. It’s pretty bad luck to be caught in a tsunami; it’s even worse luck when characters do stupid things only to create drama. Kristian is separated from his family and must battle his way through a destroyed town to find them. Idun and Sondre are both trapped in the hotel but unable to find one another. It’s contrived at best. And it’s best not to mention a laughable climactic scene where a character that should be dead is revived by an extended bout of CPR.
So why watch a disaster film? Perhaps it’s to give us hope. That when that earthquake strikes or that tornado touches down, that your film is the one who beats all the odds and makes it out alive. The Wave, despite its promising beginnings, ends up a pandering, contrived mess – one where the body count and destruction is irrelevant as long as the members of the principal family make it out okay. That’s all that really matters, right?
