In The Heart of the Sea

Three things I didn’t know this time last week. Nantucket is the name of an Island. Whale Oil was what once lit our homes. Moby Dick was based on a true story. I’ve never been interested Herman Melville’s story, Moby Dick, nearly 900 pages is long slog of a read when the story doesn’t interest you.

In 2000 Nathaniel Philbrick published his non fiction book “In the Heart of the Sea” which tells the true story that inspired the novel, Moby Dick. This film is about the true story of the sinking of the whaling ship, Essex. It was rammed by a sperm whale and sank and what follows is a horrific story of the struggle for survival that ensues one thousand miles from land. The story touches on the horrors of surviving, of cannibalism and courage.

For once the emaciation you see is real as the actors survived on between 300 and 600 calories a day in order to get their bodies to look like skeletons. The acting is superb. The visuals of the sea, the storms, the whale are breathtaking. It is a good old fashioned film, telling a gripping tale. I was spellbound.

The film didn’t cover its production cost at the Box Office which apparently makes it a flop. It is in no way a flop. Some argue that the film didn’t appeal to the Chris Hemsworth fan base and who knows that might be true. But let’s not have actors stereotyped?

It utterly absorbed me and it was a film I had put off watching time and again because the words Moby Dick equals boredom in my mind. But this  true story from the safe hands of Ron Howard is well worth watching.


Four stars

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