As you have probably guessed, ‘The Water Diviner’ is an exercise in sentimentality, mostly to a fault. This reflects, no doubt, on Crowe’s past choices like ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and ‘Cinderella Man’. Except, those films had the measured hands of experienced filmmakers, and Crowe’s first attempt at direction mostly generates fake mawkishness rather than genuine emotion.

Some parts also resemble a tourism promo for ‘Exotic Turkey’. This is not to say, however, that the camera work capturing old Istanbul (Andrew Lesnie, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) is not gorgeous.