Disaster in the fjords

The Wave, from Norway, makes the topography of that country—with its fjords and rock formations—into one of the chief characters in a smartly appointed, briskly paced thriller.

It’s also been promoted as a “disaster movie,” the disaster here being a tsunami (hence the title) resulting from a massive rock slide in one of those fjords. Director Roar Uthaug and company are working with something less than a blockbuster budget, but they still deliver levels of spectacle and suspense worthy of those genre designations.

The drama in this case is heightened by the fact that key characters are part of a group in charge of monitoring seismic activity at a very remote fjord.

Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) is just about to leave that group for a job in another area when he notices signs of an unusual seismic disturbance. He takes immediate action, first investigating the site of the disturbance up close and then racing to alert the villagers, tourists and members of his family who are in the path of the impending big wave.

Screenwriters John Kare Raake and Harald Rosenlow-Eeg fold some piquant family drama into the story. Kristian’s wife, Irun (Ane Dahl Torp), seems the more capable and self-possessed of the two. Their sulking teenage son (Jonas Hoff Oftebro) and angelic small daughter (Edith Haagenrud-Sande) are both imperiled in the film’s climactic action, and both parents have to make risky choices in the course of the ensuing rescues and escapes.

The writers also add touches of drama around the local community’s rather scattered and disjunctive reactions to an unfolding calamity that is both long anticipated and very nearly unforeseen. In a way, that part of the story is scarier, and hits closer to home, than the eponymous monster itself.