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It’s no Moby Dick, but then, it isn’t trying to be, even if it’s based on one real incident that inspired Melville’s novel. Instead, director Ron Howard has made a solid, old-school man-versus-nature adventure that’s also about a dawning environmental awareness, if only in one man. The beginning of that spark in Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth)—first mate of the whaling ship Essex, which experienced the 1820 disaster chronicled here—is more than likely entirely fictional, but that’s fine. Howard makes you feel the power of the mighty ship as the wind snaps in her sails, and Chase and Capt. Pollard (Benjamin Walker) disagree over how to navigate, beginning a philosophical divide over whether humans are in charge of nature, or nature is in charge of herself. And while Heart is never unsympathetic to the ordeal the Essex survivors endure, it is never unsympathetic to the whale, either. A once-familiar historical story is retold in a way that commands us to respect nature for what it is in its own right, not for what it can do for us.
Official Site: www.intheheartoftheseamovie.com
Director: Ron Howard
Producer: Paula Weinstein, Joe Roth, Will Ward, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Bruce Berman, Steven Mnuchin, Sarah Bradshaw, Palak Patel, Erica Huggins and David Bergstein
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, Tom Holland, Paul Anderson, Frank Dillane, Joseph Mawle, Edward Ashley, Sam Keeley, Osy Ikhile, Gary Beadle, Jamie Sives, Morgan Chetcuti, Charlotte Riley, Nicholas Jones, Donald Sumpter, Richard Bremmer and Jordi Mollà
Director: Ron Howard
Producer: Paula Weinstein, Joe Roth, Will Ward, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Bruce Berman, Steven Mnuchin, Sarah Bradshaw, Palak Patel, Erica Huggins and David Bergstein
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Brendan Gleeson, Ben Whishaw, Michelle Fairley, Tom Holland, Paul Anderson, Frank Dillane, Joseph Mawle, Edward Ashley, Sam Keeley, Osy Ikhile, Gary Beadle, Jamie Sives, Morgan Chetcuti, Charlotte Riley, Nicholas Jones, Donald Sumpter, Richard Bremmer and Jordi Mollà
