Creed II
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Homecoming
Log in with Facebook
OR
By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies, and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango.
Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password.
Critics Consensus: The Water Diviner finds Russell Crowe on somewhat uncertain footing as a director, but he's rescued by a strong performance from himself in the leading role.
Critic Consensus: The Water Diviner finds Russell Crowe on somewhat uncertain footing as a director, but he's rescued by a strong performance from himself in the leading role.
All Critics (147) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (56)
Indeed, this is the 51-year-old Crowe's first time as a movie director, but he's hardly a novice actor stepping behind the camera for some sort of vanity project.
It's clear that Russell Crowe has poured his heart and soul into the historical romance The Water Diviner, his first feature as a director. If only the film were better.
A sloggy, heartfelt piece of quasi-magical realist storytelling.
Crowe strives to strike a universal chord about the futility of war. Simplistic? Maybe. But in crafting a film about the pain a parent feels after losing a child in battle, Crowe transcends borders and politics.
Crowe needs, badly, a director to push back against his default mode: The script for The Water Diviner posits that Joshua Connor is the most interesting man in the frame at all times, but Crowe's performance doesn't earn that.
Even slightly self-censored, its images of broken cities and the walking wounded is a strong restating of the film's message: There is no such thing as a "good" war. There's only war - sometimes necessary, sometimes not. And always inhuman.
Trying to do too much, and losing the humanity in his story, The Water Diviner is just a mess.
As a debut it is a remarkable effort, with Crowe showing a great deal of sophistication in handling the narrative.
"The Water Diviner" is a beautiful story engaging the viewer on many different levels.
Once again the character representative of Christianity shows only selfish, shallow callousness while the character representative of Islam offers a well-spring of peace, rest, and reoriented perspective for the weary Western protagonist's soul.
Thinking that a movie directed by Russell Crowe is good may be the film reviewer's equivalent of crying: "Look at the dog! It walks!" But everything fits together, and it's well shot and satisfyingly pacy.
There are some good scenes in Crowe's directorial debut, but it mostly feels like a fumbled opportunity to make a much more significant film.
All the excitement you'd expect from a film about the battle for Gallipoli -- or, rather, from slogging through the mud of the battle field four years later in order to inexplicably, magically divine the places where your three sons died...one...by...one....in order to fulfill a promise to a depressed woman who killed herself long ago. Quick tip: Save you ticket money and take a two hour nap instead!
Super Reviewer
A cheesey love story that has an equally absurd plot. Well acted shame about the rest.
Russell Crowe's performance is the only thing that prevents this from being a complete disaster, since his awful direction and the lame script turn the film into a Mexican telenovela for alpha males, with ludicrous situations, cheesy dialogue and Olga Kurylenko as an irritating caricature.
Deserving more attention that it has thus far received, The Water Diviner represents Russell Crowe's directorial debut and the result is relatively successful, if unspectacular. While the plot involves an Australian man traveling to British-occupied post-Ottoman Turkey, trying to recover his sons' remains in the aftermath of WWI (all three were presumably killed at The Battle of Gallipoli), it is framed as a journey of self- discovery with light romantic elements. Crowe proves to be a competent but not exceptional director. His true talents lie in front of the camera and he is still an able lead, provided he has something to work with. Olga Kurylenko perks up the picture a bit with her charms, even if her casting as a Turkish woman is questionable. (She's French Russian, but Hollywood has been doing this shit forever, so who cares right?) There are many historical elements that go nowhere - the British Occupation, Turkish Nationalist movements, the Greek Invasion, women's lack of rights in an Islamic society, among others that just form noise and an interesting backdrop. What proves more substantial is the film's true subtext about the aftermath of the WWI itself. I would argue that The Water Diviner is a light, somber epitaph to the generation of young men lost on both sides of the Middle Eastern campaign and the people they left behind. It's not perfect and lacks the punch it might have had, but the topic is something more Americans need to be familiar with, and you could do far worse things with your time.
There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.
View All