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| Directed by Ron Howard Written by Charles Leavitt, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver |
Alo Party Peoples.
Ron Howard is the kind of film maker that makes great film making look easy, nobody worth taking seriously is going to dispute that. He is the kind of film maker that makes such masterful use of the cinematic form while also making garunteed crowdpleasers that by the end of the movie you're left wondering why everyone else has such a hard time getting it right.
In The Heart of the Sea is a great example of that kind of film making, trading in broad sweeps befitting of the kind of archetypes that make up much of its cast and its breathtaking presentation. Think an Apollo 13 style story of a voyage to distant lands gone wrong by way of Titanic's captial-R Romaticism, and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect from In The Heart of the Sea.
Chris Hemsworth is Owen Chase, a farmer's son that followed his late father's dreams of becoming a whaler, and has done so for a number of years, becoming quite good at it. One day in 1819, he leaves his pregnant wife behind for one final voyage aboard the Essex on the condition that he be allowed to captain the ship. Only to find that he's instead first mate to Benjamin Walker as George Pollard, son of one of the great whaling families of Nantucket, on the condition that if they come back with 2000 barrels of whale oil he will be a captain. Their voyage is fraught with danger, encountering a storm that nearly cripples them, and arriving at their usual hunting grounds only to find that it is nearly devoid of whales. So they dock in Ecuador in hopes of selling their meager findings and maybe get something out of the expedition, where they hear legends of a spot way out in the Pacific, where there are "flukes as far as the eye can see" and they can fill their holds with oil in a few days, if it weren't for a massive white whale that sinks any ship that ventures near. Chase thinks it's insane, this kind of risktaking is what got them into the storm, but Pollard is desperate to keep up the family's reputation, so they head out there anyways, and the whale sinks their ship.
That's about as close as In The Heart of the Sea gets to having a point, every bad thing that happens to the Essex is brought about by the captain ignoring the warnings of the experienced whaler and going with his gut in the pursuit of profit. They don't sail around the edge of the storm because it would take too long. They don't head in for repairs because it would wreck the Pollard family name, they head into uncharted waters and run into a monster because the captain sees no other way to fill their holds. And in a final bit of symbolism, the Essex doesn't survive the whale attack because the whale oil in their holds catches fire, any chance of salvation the crew had being destroyed by their own hubris.
It wants to be a cautionary tale about foolhardy risk taking and going where man was not meant to be, and the general presentation matches up with it, but it fails to convey the kind of emotional gut punches such a story needs in order for those themes to connect. The cast works their ass off to make it work; natural-born movie star Chris Hemsworth can't help but look good in period dress aboard a great wooden ship like he just jumped off the cover of a trashy paperback romance novel, Benjamin Walker perfectly embodies an arrogant nepotistic old family name that cares about nothing other than keeping up the family name, the cinematography is absolutely stunning, but it just doesn't connect in the way that it should. More often than not, In The Heart of the Sea feels like a well done but soulless cover version of a much better film.
Maybe if it ended with the sinking of the Essex, In The Heart of the Sea would have worked better, the shock and horror of seeing everything you've ever worked for destroyed in an instant by your own human imperfections would sink in, but it goes on, detailing how they survived being lost at sea for months afterwards, barely hanging on at the mercy of the planet they'd considered themselves masters of. At one point, after they've washed up on a desolate rock thousands of miles away from civilization, one of the crew tells Chase that men were divinely ordained masters of the world, he grimly responds "Do you feel like an earthly king right now?" That should mean something, it should have real impact, but instead it comes across as shallow message mongering.
In The Heart of the Sea is not as good as it should be, but it's still a gorgeous looking film baked up by two great actors turning in great performances. It's worth seeing for that, but only if you can ignore how much better it could have been.
Have a nice day.
Greg.B
FINAL RATING: 4/5
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