'The Water Diviner': After war's carnage, a father's search
Yes, the farmer played by Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner has triumphed again, deploying spindly twigs and uncanny instinct to find a deep well in the parched Australian outback in 1919. But there's no merriment when he and his trusty cattle dog return home: His wife is at her wit's end, the couple's three sons long gone, lost in the bloody World War I battle of Gallipoli. Grief ricochets off the walls, silence fills the rooms.
Yes, the farmer played by Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner has triumphed again, deploying spindly twigs and uncanny instinct to find a deep well in the parched Australian outback in 1919. But there's no merriment when he and his trusty cattle dog return home: His wife is at her wit's end, the couple's three sons long gone, lost in the bloody World War I battle of Gallipoli. Grief ricochets off the walls, silence fills the rooms.
The Water Diviner is "inspired by true events," we're told, and its story of a father's quest to find the remains of his soldier boys and bury them on native soil inspired Crowe to put on a director's cap for the first time. After toiling for the likes of Ridley Scott, Ron Howard, and Peter Weir all these years, Crowe takes command of his own camera crews and castmates, mounting an ambitious and sentimental period drama.
Spanning continents and employing slo-mo battle scenes (and the stirring orchestrations to go with them), The Water Diviner finds Crowe's Connor on a soulful sojourn to the Ottoman Empire four years after the meat-grinder battle that took his offspring - and thousands upon thousands of other young men, Australians, New Zealanders, and Turks among them.
He encounters bureaucratic resistance (sorry, we can't allow you to go poking around - this is official business of the Allied forces). He encounters a sympathetic Turkish officer (Yilmaz Erdogan) who knows the shock and sorrow of war firsthand.
And he encounters Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko), a lovely widow left with a scamp of a son and a hotel to run. Connor checks in. Meaningful looks are exchanged, his blue eyes locking onto hers. But there is a vast chasm of conflict and clashing cultures between them.
Before the possibility of romance, Connor must find his sons - and get involved in a few dust-ups. It is the first year of the Turkish War of Independence. The hills are alive with the sound of munitions.
There's little subtlety or nuance in The Water Diviner. There is plenty of action as Connor jumps on horses and trains and goes tearing around picturesque landscapes, chased by cannon fire and calamity. Later, there might be a candlelit dinner with the Istanbul hotelier whose beauty is undeniable, and whose ability to read the future in a cup of coffee could make for a particularly sugary ending.
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The Water Diviner ** 1/2 (Out of four stars)
Directed by Russell Crowe. With Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney, Yilmaz Erdogan. Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 1 hour, 51 mins.
Parent's guide: R (violence, adult themes).
Playing at: Area theaters.