It’s been a while since we’ve had a really good disaster film*. Sure, we got San Andreas back in May, but even that one was mediocre at best. Norway’s submission for the 2016 Best Foreign Language Academy Award, The Wave, doesn’t really break the mold when it comes to disaster movies, but it’s a cut above the rest.
*Yes, I’m reviewing a disaster film on a horror movie site. It played at Fantastic Fest, a genre film festival, so I figured why not?
Based on the 1934 tsunami that hit Norway’s Tafjord, The Wave follows Kristian (Kristoffer Jonner, Dead Snow 2) and his wife Idun (Ane Dahl Torp, Dead Snow) as they prepare to move their family out of their small town after Kristian accepts a job at a large oil company. Their small town is situated on the shores of a fjord overseen by Norway’s Akneset mountain pass. At any time, the mountain could collapse in a giant rockslide which would crash into the fjord below, creating a tsunami large enough to destroy the entire town. Guess what happens?
What sets The Wave apart from other disaster films is its very small scope. Taking a page from the 2012 critical darling The Impossible, The Wave chooses to set the focus on Kristian and his family, with the titular natural disaster as the backdrop to the family drama. Unlike most American (read: Roland Emmerich-directed) disaster films, there isn’t a cast full of characters for us to know. We get some brief time with Kristian’s co-workers, but other than that it’s all on Kristian and his family.
Unfortunately, The Wave is first and foremost a disaster movie. It follows pretty much every disaster movie trope to a T, both the good and the bad ones. We have Kristian’s boss at his geology station who refuses to believe anything bad will happen and thus waits until the last possible minute (literally) to order his team to sound the alarm and warn the town. Whenever their state-of-the-art equipment tells them something funny is going on, they chalk it up to technological errors. Kristian’s son is listening to music when the alarm goes off and thus causes him and Idun to be trapped at the hotel she works at when the wave strikes. Also, I don’t really understand why anyone would willingly live in this town when they know a giant wave could strike at any moment.
Luckily, the good far outweighs the bad in The Wave. The 10-15 minute sequence of the wave strike is absolutely spectacular. The special effects are top notch and it is almost unbearably tense. Out of all the disaster movies I’ve seen (and I’ve seen many), this sequence stands out as one of the best. Adding to the tension is the score, which is particularly heart-pounding during the moments leading up to the wave strike. The chemistry between all the actors is great, and the performances are refreshingly grounded in a genre where actors can get a little hammy.
The Wave probably won’t get the Academy Award nomination Norway is hoping for, but it’s still a solid entry in the disaster movie genre that wisely wears its heart on its sleeve and, at 105 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome. If it does manage to get a theatrical release here in the states, it’s definitely worth a ticket purchase.
