Russell Crowe

The Water Diviner, the directorial debut of Russell Crowe, is a tumultuous mishmash of tones: part Indiana Jones adventure, part fish-out-of-water comedy, part Nicholas Sparks romance, all mystical goop. A throwback historical epic that’s as overwrought as it is uneven, it is almost redeemed by Crowe’s evident passion for his subject matter, which involves the Battle of Gallipoli and its woeful aftermath. Crowe clearly felt compelled to tell this story, and his ambition is admirable. His execution is another matter.

Crowe stars as Joshua Connor, a hardscrabble farmer whom we first see prowling the barren Australian landscape, searching for signs of water. It is 1919, four years after the wartime events at Gallipoli, which are presumed to have claimed the lives of Joshua’s three sons. After his wife, disconsolate from her children’s death, drowns herself in a makeshift pool of her husband’s own construction (oh, the irony!), Joshua resolves to travel to Gallipoli and locate his sons’ remains. When he arrives in Turkey, however, he learns that securing passage to the ruins is no easy task, and he takes up temporary residence in an Istanbul hotel operated by a fetching proprietor, Ayshe (Olga Kurylenko, stiff). Read More