Moby Dick it isn't.
In the Heart of the Sea
Grade: C
Director: Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
Screenplay: Charles Leavitt (Blood Diamond)
Cast: Chris Hemsworth (Rush), Cillian Murphy (Inception)
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 121 min.
by John DeSando
“The tragedy of the Essex is the story of men. And a Demon.” Old Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleason)
It’s easy to label a sea story of man against the whale as formulaic, except in the case of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, which just about defines the genre. And so, in the Heart of the Sea, a Ron Howard film, inspired by the preying on the Essex in 1829 by a sperm whale, falls into cliché too easily.
But then how do you compete with Melville, who was inspired by the same story to write his great novel? Probably you don’t because Howard is an appropriate director for an historical romance. Yet, this film lacks grandeur as it has barely any heroes and no great themes. Although Chris Hemsworth as first mate Owen Chase does a credible acting job toward the bloody end, his character is hardly even close to the complexity of Ahab. Yet Hemsworth is a delightful surprise of strong acting in the harrowing whale scenes. The rest of the film is a formulaic survival epic not much better than Unbroken.
In addition, Chase doesn’t divulge any overarching madness or even passion over the nettlesome whale, and the weak Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) is, well, weak from lack of experience (also, he is captain because he is a scion of a shipping family). Despite Chase’s explaining to his young wife that seafaring is all he knows, as he prepares for the two-year sail, screenwriter Charles Leavitt can’t seem to get any greatness out of him (Old Nickerson has better lines, and he’s just an intermittent narrator).
If character and dialogue are not the strong suit of such a film, then the visuals ought to be. In the Heart of the Sea fails this test as well: process shots, where talking sailors are back rounded by the sea, for instance, are laughably incompetent. Thank goodness for the long and aerial shots, which take in a true-seeming sea and boat.
Sequences with the whale are impressive, however. That tail is the grandest part of the film.
“We were headed for the edge of sanity . . . like we were aberrations, phantoms. Trust gave way to doubt. Hope to superstition.” Old Thomas Nickerson
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
