Big Miracle

Big Miracle, originally Everybody Loves Whales, is a 2012 drama film directed by Ken Kwapis. It stars Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski. The film is based on Tom Rose's 1989 book Freeing the Whales, which covers Operation Breakthrough, the 1988 international effort to rescue gray whales trapped in ice near Point Barrow, Alaska. Plot In small town Alaska 1988, Adam Carlson, a news reporter, recruits his ex-girlfriend Rachel – a Greenpeace volunteer – on a campaign to save a family of gray whales trapped by rapidly forming ice in the Arctic Circle. Adam names the adult whales Fred and Wilma, and the infant Bamm-Bamm. Drawn into the collaborative rescue work are several normally hostile factions: Inupiat whale hunters, a Greenpeace environmental activist, an oil executive, ambitious news reporters, the National Guard, the American president and politicians on the state, national, and international levels. Also joining in the effort are two entrepreneurs from Minnesota, who provide de-icing machines to help keep the hole open. Finally an enormous Soviet ice-breaker ship arrives to remove the last barrier before the whales die. The ship's first attempt leaves only a dent. The ice is finally broken and the adult whales escape the ice. The infant whale dies from injuries.