Movie of the Week: In the Heart of the Sea

The story of the account on which Melville based his classic story of Moby Dick. A man-against-nature movie with both the sea and a great white whale batting for nature while on the man team is Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy, Ben Wishaw, Benjamin Walker and Tom Holland batting for the crew of the New England whaling ship the Essex. The story itself is bookended in 1850 by Melville (Wishaw) hunting down the last survivor of the Essex, sunk thirty years before in 1820, to get the true account. And get it he does, in all its gory detail.

The tale describes a voyage already fraught because the first mate, Owen Chase, (Hemsworth) has been passed over for captaincy of the Essex in favour of an inexperienced but well connected George Pollard (Walker). The two are at odds almost at once and this continues through months of finding no whales.

Eventually they head hundreds of miles out to sea in the pacific in search of fabled whaling grounds and that's where their troubles really start. The white whale is a tenacious enemy and this is the story of how they (some of them at any rate) survive.

It's beautifully filmed. The whaling sequences are truly awful, sparing no detail of his the creatures were hacked to pieces and boiled for their oil - a valuable commodity used to light streets and homes. Ron Howard directs and the pace is tense. It had me riveted. Apparently it received mixed reviews, but I'd recommend it.