In the Heart of the Sea

In the Heart of the Sea (2015) tells the true event that produced Moby-Dick. In 1820 the whaleship Essex was sunk in the Pacific by a sperm whale. That was unheard of at the time; whales were hunted, they did not hunt. The surviving crew drifted for months in small boats and eventually had to eat the bodies of those who died. Herman Melville heard the story, spoke with one of the last survivors, and wrote Moby-Dick. The film uses that interview as its frame; we watch the events through the old sailor's account. It is adapted from Nathaniel Philbrick's book of the same name. Its best quality is showing what whaling actually was. In the nineteenth century whale oil was what lit street lamps; this was an oil industry, and the ships stayed at sea for years. The actors genuinely lost weight; the physical change in the starvation sections is not digital. The digital sea and whale work was criticised and the film failed commercially. Ron Howard stages the story as an adventure when the material wants a darker film, and that mismatch is its central problem. It runs 122 minutes. Good for: sea adventure, true events, and history. Less good for: the whaling scenes are distressing, cannibalism is part of the story, and the effects are not always convincing.