The Book Really Was Better: In the Heart of the Sea

In the Heart of the Sea, or as it should have been titled: Scenes from the Class Struggle on Nantucket, Mutiny on the Essex, Portrait of Herman Melville as a Young Man, The Nantucket Syndrome, or the White Whale: The Revenge. Do those titles sound disparate? Lacking in unity or theme? Well in In the Heart of the Sea the accents are as wildly inconsistent as the storytelling.

            The story of the sinking of the Nantucket whaling ship Essex is, on one hand, relatively straightforward and, on the other hand, wholly remarkable. While on a whaling voyage in the Pacific Ocean, the Essex was rammed by a whale and sank. The crew abandoned ship and set across the sea in three whaling boats armed with only two months worth of provisions. As their supplies dwindled, the surviving crew members resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. On one whaling boat, the four remaining sailors, including Captain George Pollard, drew lots to determine who would die in order to save the others. Seventeen year old Owen Coffin, Pollard’s cousin and the ship’s cabin boy, drew the short straw. Only eight of twenty crew members survived long enough to be rescued. When the first mate, Owen Chase, returned to Nantucket, he published a narrative of the events that had led to the ship’s demise and the crew’s unlikely survival. This narrative became the basis for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.

He's supposed to be 45? Really? 

            The film version of Nathaniel Philbrick’s bestselling book eschews this story in favor of a hodgepodge of wildly shifting tones and themes. The beginning of the film sees Herman Melville arrive on Nantucket in search of Thomas Nickerson, the last surviving member of the Essex to hear the true story of what had happened to the ship. Thirty years before, the 16 year old Nickerson had set sail as a greenhorn aboard the ship—why he’s being played by 60 year old Brendan Gleeson, when the character should be 45 or so, goes unanswered. Nickerson eventually agrees to unburden his soul—see he’s ashamed that he resorted cannibalism during the voyage and has compensated by (SHOCKER!) becoming a moody alcoholic—to Melville in exchange for a wad of cash. The film routinely cuts back to their interview, consistently ruining any forward plot momentum.

Thomas Nickerson’s great unburdening, however, is only one of the many films hidden somewhere inside In the Heart of the Sea. Ron Howard’s movie also clumsily plays on the class distinctions on whaling vessels by making Owen Chase, the first mate, Horatio Alger incarnate. Captain George Pollard, meanwhile, is a scion of Nantucket wealth and privilege and disdainful of Chase and his attempts at upward mobility. The two men clash in an unintentionally hilarious argument over stunsails. It’s a wonder either actor could say the word without bursting out into laughter. The film also presents Herman Melville as a man haunted by the story of the Essex, yet not so traumatized that he can’t fictionalize large parts of it for profit. The owners of the Essex engage in a conspiracy to cover up the sinking of the ship, lest people realize that engaging in years long whaling voyages thousands out miles out at sea might be dangerous. And finally with a determination not seen out of marine life since Jaws: The Revenge the great whale that rams the Essex stalks the crew for months at sea. He never, however, manages to finish to the job of killing the emaciated crew. What he’s waiting for? The film’s atrocious CGI to do it for him?

He's such a handsome social climber 

            In the Heart of the Sea is especially disappointing because Ron Howard has successfully directed movies like this in the past. Howard’s Apollo 13 is a story of survival based on remarkable true story about men stranded thousands of miles from home. That film vividly displayed the dangers of space travel and the dire circumstances of being adrift without hope of rescue. In the Heart of the Sea shied away from depicting the lengths that the sailors on the Essex went to in order to survive. Their cannibalism is implied and alluded to, but never directly shown in order to make it palatable to the audience.  When the movie tries to have its cathartic moment of Nickerson revealing the horror of his ordeal, the scene feels unearned. The film fails to make his torment relatable to the audience.

             In the Heart of the Sea is terrible, it’s just bad. So bad that it makes you root for the killer whale to put everyone--including the audience--out of their misery.