In the Heart of the Sea

In the Heart of the Sea is no Moby Dick. But then, it isn’t trying to be, even if it is based on one real incident that inspired Herman Melville’s novel. Instead, director Ron Howard has made a film that is solid, old-school man-versus-nature adventure melodrama, as much Mutiny on the Bounty as Cast Away, as much Jaws as The Perfect Storm. But The Perfect Storm was underlain with hints of a larger hubris that all of humanity was starting to get smacked down for: our degradation of the global environment. And now Heart is about a dawning of a green awareness, if only in one man.

Some will howl about political correctness, but they’d be wrong. The only way a story about historical whaling could be palatable now is to infuse it with the larger understanding of the world we have today. Yet Heart is more than merely palatable: It’s rollicking, smart, breathtaking and sobering. It knows that a good way to understand how our ideas have changed is to see the beginning of a spark of a new way of thinking.

The beginning of that spark in Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), first mate of the whaling ship the Essex, is more than likely entirely fictional, but that’s fine. The framing story is invented, too: In 1850 Nantucket, Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) goes to visit Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), a survivor of the 1820 disaster that befell the Essex, in order to hear his story. And so we begin to flash back to 1819, when 14-year-old Nickerson (Tom Holland) went to sea as a cabin boy on the Essex under Chase and Captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker).

At first all is glorious: Howard makes you feel the power of the mighty ship as the wind snaps in her sails and she hurtles across the ocean. But soon enough, nature lashes out in the form of a storm that Chase and Pollard disagree over how to navigate, the beginning of a philosophical divide between the two men over whether humans are in charge of nature, or nature is in charge of herself. Neither yet seems to appreciate that humanity may have already overstepped its bounds: Already, in the early 19th century, the whaling grounds are overfished and an “energy crisis” is looming. The world is lit by whale oil, and “without us,” Pollard notes, “the world plunges into darkness.” Which is why, in 1820, long months into its voyage and the barrels in its holds intended for whale oil still mostly empty, Pollard and Chase push the Essex into a dangerously remote area of the Pacific rumored to be abundant in whales.

Here the Essex encounters the “demon” whale that destroys the Essex and follows the survivors in their tiny lifeboats. It’s now, just when you start to wonder, “How could these men, who got so close to the whales on a regular basis, not have had any inkling that they were intelligent creatures?” that we start to see Chase, at least, begin to suspect this is the case. And while Heart is never unsympathetic to the ordeal the survivors of the Essex endure – months lost at sea with little to drink or eat – it is never unsympathetic to the whale, either. The film doesn’t ignore the particular gory horrors of the whaling industry. But that moment of eye contact is something fundamentally different for Chase. And for us, the whale becomes humanized.

Apparently the tale of the Essex disaster is something every American once knew, though now we’ve forgotten it. But it is retold here in a way that makes it relevant for us again, bringing us face to face with nature in a way that commands that we respect it for what it is in its own right, not for what it can do for us.

HEART OF THE SEA (3 1/2) Directed by Ron Howard • Starring Chris Hemsworth, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson, Tom Holland • Rated PG-13 • 121 min. • At Maya Cinemas, Century Cinemas Del Monte, Northridge Cinemas, Lighthouse Cinemas, Century Marina, Cannery Row XD