An epic movie that will make you hang on to every minute of it, “The Water Diviner” is a rated-R war drama that stars Russell Crowe (who also directed), Olga Kurylenko and Jai Courtney. The movie is inspired by a historic letter about the battle of Gallipoli after World War I and the struggle to properly identify and bury the soldiers who fell there. One sentence in the letter that stuck out to the writers of the script was “One old chap managed to get here from Australia today, searching for his son’s grave”.

The movie stars an Australian farmer, Joshua Connor (Crowe), who goes to Turkey to find his three sons who were believed to have been killed during the battle of Gallipoli in 1915. In Constantinople, Connor meets Muslim widow Ayshe (Kurylenko) and her son. He creates a deep relationship with them before he heads to Gallipoli. Once there, Connor, with the help of Lieutenant-Colonel Hughes (Courtney), is able to find the bones of two of his sons. Later that same day, with the help of Turkish officer Major Hasan, who was present at battle of Gallipoli, Connor learns that one of his sons might still be alive and a prisoner in a region that is conflicted between the Greeks and the British.

This movie touched me pretty deeply, even though some parts of it are still a little hard to understand. I personally think that this movie is one of Crowe’s best and that it shows just how far someone will go to find someone they love.The fact that Connor never gives up in looking is inspiring itself because he had to go through so much to find his boys, even though he was sure all of them were dead. My favorite part of the movie is when he is reading “The Arabian Knights” to his boys after they are properly buried at Gallipoli. I believe this movie is one that anyone would enjoy, whether they like war movies or not.  I give this movie five out of five Cardinal heads.