Warner Bros. Pictures
Back in 1987 when Universal released Jaws: The Revenge, it came with a plot and tagline that was universally (no pun intended) derided. In that movie, the shark apparently was getting revenge for the slaughter of its species in the previous three films. The tagline was “This time it’s personal.” Strangely enough, that exact tagline ran through my head during the run time of In the Heart of the Sea.
The plot of the new Ron Howard drama, based on a true story that inspired the novel Moby-Dick, focuses on the crew of the Essex, a whaling ship in 1820 that is about to set sail on a new voyage to bring back thousands of barrels of whale oil, the fuel of the era more valuable than gold. Without whale oil, the planet goes dark.
Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), an experienced whaler — although looked down upon by the other seamen for coming from a farming family — expecting to be given command of the next voyage finds himself relegated to First Mate after a bit of nepotism puts an inexperienced son of a company man in charge. The two struggle to work together but things come to a head when Captain Pollard (Benjamin Walker) makes a bad decision to sail the ship into a squall to “test” his crew. It almost ends in disaster, and Pollard blames Chase for the damages incurred as he tried to keep the ship afloat.
Pollard wants to return to port, but Chase convinces him that returning without a hold full of oil would be an even worse decision. They forge ahead, find the southern Atlantic over-fished, and decide to sail around Cape Horn to the Pacific. In a South American port, they hear the story of a hundred-foot white whale that nearly killed the entire crew of another ship in an area full of whales. Pollard and Chase agree they must forge ahead and not worry about stories of sea monsters.
Of course, the story of the whale is true, and after the Essex harpoons several whales, the white whale begins to attack, seemingly exacting revenge for the attacks on its own kind. The Essex is destroyed and the surviving crew members must battle the elements, and the whale, to get back home.
In the Heart of the Sea is a handsomely told tale, framed by the device of author Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) paying a visit to Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who was just a boy (played by new Spider-Man Tom Holland) when he set sail on the Essex, to hear the story of what happened on the voyage. Nickerson has never told the truth to anyone, not even his wife but she convinces him it will set him free if he does. That and they need the money Melville is offering. The story becomes the basis for Melville’s epic novel (but not all of the truth is included in his fiction).
The costumes and production design of the film are superlative, as are all of the effects depicting the Essex at sea and the attacks of the whale, but the subsequent months of survival, very reminiscent of last years World War II drama Unbroken (including a well-reported extreme weight loss program by Chris Hemsworth), begin to drag the film down to a screeching halt.
Speaking of Hemsworth, his performance is … stoic but his accent is all over the place. He sounds Australian when we first hear him, then all of a sudden he’s doing the stereotypical “pahk yah cah in Hahvahd Yahd” Boston accent for a minute, which then turns into a mish-mash of Aussie, Bostonian, and flat english. Most of the others seem to be doing faint British accents, perhaps more accurate to the time.
Outside of that, the film is well made, but is it a great film? Some people at the screening loved it. I didn’t. I wanted to very much, but the long scenes at sea when the whale isn’t attacking become quite a drag that nearly put me to sleep. The whale attacks are thrilling, but few and far between (despite the TV ads showing non-stop action). We’ve seen Howard do stranded with much greater effect and emotion in Apollo 13. I actually enjoyed the scenes with Melville and Nickerson interspersed throughout the story more than the long scenes at sea. The problem with the story is that the fiction is usually more gripping than the facts, and Howard may have been better served making his interpretation of Moby-Dick rather than just the story that inspired it.
As it stands, In the Heart of the Sea is a fine film, but the entertainment it offers is as elusive as that white whale.
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