As Belón and other survivors of the tsunami have pointed out, The Impossible is not only based on a true story, it also got the details of that story very right. However, just because the film is an accurate portrayal of the Belón family's experiences, doesn't mean it's a representative look at the events of the Indian Ocean Tsunami.
When the film was released, it was met with criticism for choosing to focus on the plight of a wealthy white vacationing British family in the midst of a natural disaster that disproportionately affected citizens of the countries the disaster actually occurred in. As Laura Helmuth argued in Slate, "[T]his movie is about one of the worst catastrophes of our lifetimes, one that hit only a few Europeans. It's fundamentally misleading to make it about white people."
The film also received criticism for not giving its Thai characters the same narrative attention as its British ones. Writing about the film for The Guardian, David Cox noted, "Those who are protesting don't want to see non-whites patronised with background roles as saintly ciphers; they want them to play mainstream parts as three-dimensional protagonists in what is, after all, their story."
If those criticisms ring true for you, then it may make The Impossible seem less accurate, not because of the details that are included in the story, but because of its narrow perspective of the events. However, as defenders of the movie have pointed out, the film set out to tell one very specific story about that day, and by most accounts, that story was both true and thoughtfully depicted.
