Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea is a very special kind of good. Sometimes it’s slow, it often decides to invest more screen time in places you’d rather weren’t in the movie at all, and many of the characters are too thin for a story as profound as it hopes to be. But the mere fact that Howard—a mainstream Hollywood veteran with as many excellent films as failures under his belt—still has new tricks up his sleeve in this age of epic fatigue is phenomenal, perhaps unprecedented.
First, he got us emotionally invested in a sport that most Americans barely understand—Formula 1 racing—with 2013’s Rush, then he follows that shocker with a high seas voyage that is decidedly not an adaptation of Moby Dick, yet is by some miracle the best monster movie of the year.
Very little of In the Heart of the Sea should work. Framing devices are often the downfall of every movie, good and bad, and so it is here. We meet young, ambitious Herman Melville (Ben Winshaw) who visits Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the now-grown man who was once the cabin boy on a whaling vessel, Essex, run by Captain George Pollard Jr. and Owen Chase. The events of one fateful expedition, we learn, would serve as the real-life inspiration for Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick, but first he must bring Nickerson to trust him with the emotional details that have clearly left the former cabin boy traumatized in later life.
Nickerson slowly relents, recounting the story of conflict between Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and Chase (Chris Hemsworth) becoming adrift at sea, before confronting a frighteningly intelligent, vengeful and battle-scarred marine mammal whose hatred costs much of the crew their lives.
The decision to investigate the research before the writing of Moby Dick seems a strange one, given the novel’s rightful place among the greatest works of literature ever produced. But once the scenes between Winshaw and Gleeson reach their zenith, it becomes clear why this is a story worth telling. Too often, tales of derring-do focus on the heroics and not the aftermath, and the fate of the Essex is as dramatically rich as the exciting and suspenseful voyage. Gleeson effectively conveys the shame and trauma of his deeds while wisely steering clear of mawkish tearjerking.
That said, what truly stands out is the voyage itself. Howard has found something of a muse in Hemsworth, whose impossible good looks and commanding screen presence have been channeled into powerful characters rather than soap opera objects of lust, first as playboy F1 driver James Hunt in Rush and now as first mate Chase.
In the Heart of the Sea’s spectacular visuals are immersive enough to make you forget that its beasts are CG, yet the narrative is uneven in tone and feels disappointing. The whale that makes life hell for the Essex is frightening, yet too many of the crewmen feel incidental for the horrors to be as visceral as intended. Nevertheless, the film is possibly as good as it could have been, and it is refreshing how much grit is left in Howard’s skills, proving there’s more to him than dimwitted Dan Brown adaptations.
Playing this week
Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213
Brooklyn
Creed
In the Heart of the Sea
The Good Dinosaur
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2
Krampus
The Letters
The Martian
Secret in Their Eyes
Spectre
The Peanuts Movie
Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall 529-3000
Chi-Raq
Macbeth
The Night Before
A Royal Night Out
Room
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thurs.)
Suffragette
Trumbo
Victor Frankenstein
