With echoes of past great, if unsubtle disaster movies such as The Day After Tomorrow and 2012, Uthaug appears to be paving the way to becoming Norway's answer to Roland Emmerich, and has already signed his first Hollywood film deal. The film boasts a budget a fraction of its American counterparts, yet with special effects, performances and thrills to equal that of any veteran disaster director.
He nails the formula in the film's brisk 105-minute runtime: the slow buildup of tension, as the only man aware of the impending disaster is ignored, the event, a seat-rattling explosion of CGI water, and the climax, an intense slow-burn in which the scattered family must its way back together. Genre cliches, such as the child in peril and the last minutes dash before the disaster, are used cleverly so as to still seem original. A few subtle moments of wry self-awareness prevent the film from becoming too portentous. A clever pre-event scene involves an early-warning analyst watching a horror movie on his laptop. As the victim is unaware of the killer behind her, so too is he oblivious of the warning lights illuminating around him. The film's modest international success so far is a hopeful sign of an increasing interest in foreign, independent films by mainstream audiences. May it continue.
