Review: The Water Diviner

 Russell Crowe stars as a rural Victorian farmer and ‘water diviner’ (a supposed mystical ability to detect water deep in the ground) whose three sons go off to fight in WWI against the Turks at Gallipoli. Four years later and the boys’ mother (played very well by an all-too rare Jacqueline McKenzie, who has been doing mostly TV shows of late) is distraught and despondent and makes Crowe promise to bring them (or their bodies) home. Crowe eventually makes the trek to Turkey and meets resistance from the British military brass (Dan Wyllie and Michael Dorman) who are still trying to identify bodies on the battlefield themselves and order Crowe to go back home. Crowe does, however learn some vital information from a Turkish Major (Yilmaz Erdogan), and is given reluctant hospitality from a local family (Steve Bastoni, his widowed sister-in-law Olga Kurylenko, and her young son). Isabel Lucas plays a Turkish (ish) prostitute, whilst Jai Courtney is an Aussie Lt. Colonel who understands where he’s coming from but can’t guarantee Crowe’s safety.

 

The 2014 directorial debut of actor Russell Crowe is pretty much what you’d expect a WWI movie from Russell Crowe to be: Earnest, well-meaning, centred on a loving and dedicated family man with a mission he simply must carry out. It’s not on the level of Peter Weir’s landmark “Gallipoli”, and everything with the Turkish characters is cornball. Steve Bastoni? Um…no, but nice Fez you’ve got there, Steve. I’ll sorta swallow Ukrainian-French actress Olga Kurylenko as a Turk, but casting Bastoni is asking for way too much, and Isabel Lucas (who still can’t act her way out of a paper hat) is even more ridiculous. Although Yilmaz Erdogan is fine in the part, I found the character of the Turkish Sergeant a little too good to be entirely true.

 

However, this ‘loosely inspired by a true story’ war-drama has a worthy and relatable story at its heart: A father who has come to find and collect the bodies of his three sons who went off to war and presumed dead. It’s a bit familiar in parts, but it’s a story that I’m surprised hadn’t been told before. I can’t deny Russell Crowe gives a strong central performance, it’s one of his best to date. He seems to get this character on the deepest of cellular levels. Decent, driven Aussie family man is well within his wheelhouse. He’s a very sincere performer and in the right role, very effective. Jai Courtney is bloody good support too, with Michael Dorman offering up a jolly good Nigel Stock/Allan Cuthbertson-type characterisation in a small part. Dan Wyllie appears inspired by James Fox for his performance, and isn’t quite as convincing as Courtney or Dorman but not bad. It’s quite an old-fashioned Aussie film in a lot of ways, but it will resonate as distinctly Australian for many of you. There will be many, many people who adore the film. I’m just glad that Rusty doesn’t lay the ‘ocker’ dinky-di stuff on too thick, he’d lose me if that were the case.

 

The screams and moans of the wounded soldiers definitely got to me. I hate war. War is wrong (if inevitable). However, the people who fight it have bravery and intestinal fortitude that I completely lack, and it’s to my own shame. And they were so young! The film also makes the point that a lot of people died during the war on both sides, and at the end of the day, wagging fingers is pointless. It was war, and both sides were fighting it. I think the one thing that does ultimately distinguish this from other ANZAC tales is that there’s something gentle and humble about this story. I’m not sure I’d call Crowe himself gentle or humble (it’s the one thing about the film that perhaps isn’t typically Crowe), but it does indeed make the film its own thing. The late, great cinematographer Andrew Lesnie (the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) does a stunning job, it really is a beautiful-looking film that manages to make fairly familiar landscapes seem somehow new.

 

Solid, well-made stuff, quite sad and only a little bit corny. This is a fine directorial debut for Crowe, who is absolutely perfect in the lead. I just found that there was very little new or surprising here, so I ultimately wasn’t quite as moved as I would’ve liked to have been. I also didn’t think the quasi-romantic subplot with Kurylenko added a whole helluva lot, either. Still, it did move me on occasion, and it’s a lot better than I was expecting. There’s definitely an audience for it (those who are like-minded with Crowe, who takes his Australian-New Zealand heritage very seriously), it’s pretty much the opposite of the kind of Australian story I tend to identify with, and even I liked it. Stupid title, though, would make it a hard sell overseas. It’s so incidental to the story itself that I really wish it were changed. The screenplay is by Andrew Anastasios (A Greek-Australian, interesting given the Greek-Australian community’s rejection of the film) and Andrew Knight (whose background is in TV, writing for Aussie shows like “Rake”, “Sea Change” and even some of the D-Generation sketch comedy shows).

 

Rating: B-