The Water Diviner
Director: Russell Crowe
Stars: Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko Sun 24 May 7.30pm Book Now
Mon 25 May 7.30pm Book Now
Duration: 111mins AGE Rating: Cert 15 Adults £6
Russell Crowe makes his debut as director and stars in this story of an Australian farmer, and Water Diviner, who travels to Turkey four years after the Battle of Gallipoli to try to find what has become of his three sons, reported missing in action.
Mark Kermode (The Guardian film critic) writes: Russell Crowe’s dramatic directorial debut shared top honours with Jennifer Kent’s brilliant The Babadook at the Australian Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in January. It’s easy to see why the film struck a chord with Oz audiences, returning to the 100-year-old horrors of the Gallipoli campaign, which still occupies a dark place in the nation’s heart.
Crowe plays bereaved father Joshua Connor, who travels to Constantinople and beyond in search of his lost sons’ remains, his skills of divination lending a mystical edge to his melancholy quest.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Megan Lehmann says: “Crowe taps a deep well of symbolism, cultural empathy and good old-fashioned storytelling” with “a wealth of exotic, postcard-pretty locales.” The screenplay offers “an otherworldly counterpoint to the gruesome realities of war and its relentlessly painful aftermath. This is a film that doesn’t glorify war a bit, despite the legend that has grown up around the tens of thousands of Australian and New Zealand troops sacrificed during the failed offensive on the Gallipoli peninsula in 1915.
