Nothing tends to rouse the spirit quite like a seafaring adventure. I’m unsure about what it is but something about being on the water, the isolation and the journeys via the one thing that connects us all, the ocean, that make for wonderful settings for a film. In the Heart of the Sea manages to channel much of that wonderment, and also show us what can happen when man takes nature for granted or the lengths people would go to survive.
The year is 1820 and Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) has been passed over for captaincy of the Essex for the son of a sea titan and patron (Benjamin Walker). Forced to be the first mate to a captain he barely respects, the crew manages to hit some dire straits when they can’t find any whales to fill their oil barrels. Luck seems to come back to them when they hear the story of a stretch of water filled with whales about 1000 miles away from South America. Once out there, they unfortunately find themselves a victim of a huge whale that leaves them stranded in the water and sets them on a journey of survival and the harrowing realities of being stranded at sea.
In the Heart of the Sea is certainly one of the most technically impressive films of the year. Ron Howard has always been good at classical Hollywood moviemaking but he manages to do a bit more this time around. Anthony Dod Mantle‘s camera work and lighting is just wonderful at setting the mood and capturing both the highs of the tale and the lows. The swinging camera and underwater shots were breathtaking to watch and when combined with the editing and epic sound design and score, makes for a really engaging picture.
In contrast to another film being released this year, In the Heart of the Sea manages to be both visceral and sanitized. For those unfamiliar with the tale lets just say that being stranded at sea doesn’t leave much room for food sources. We don’t see it though, much like most of their suffering, but what the movie misses in screen depiction it makes up for in emotional resonance. I’m not particularly a fan of the narrative device of having a character recount a story (particularly given that this is a survival narrative) but having Thomas Nickerson narrate and deviate from wanting to speak about what happened while talking to Herman Melville provides the movie with some gravitas and human compassion. It helps that Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, and Michelle Fairley are talented enough to make the present day sequences good.