Jose Haro/Summit Entertainment

All right, make that a very bad day. When the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami hits without warning in the film’s opening minutes, we see it through the terrified eyes of the film’s protagonists, a British family vacationing at a Thai beach resort. The father, Henry (Ewan McGregor) is in the pool with the younger boys, Thomas (Samuel Joslin) and Simon (Oaklee Pendergast). Oldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) is off to the side having an adolescent sulk. And mother Maria (Naomi Watts) is crouched before a pool house’s glass walls as she looks up to see distant palm trees crashing down and a wall of brown water crest high above the roof of the resort.