The whaleship Essex was sunk in 1820 by a large sperm whale. That true story caught the imagination of Herman Melville, who published his masterpiece novel Moby-Dick in 1851. This film, adapted from the book of the same name by Nathaniel Philbrick, tells the story of the Essex in flashback as one of the few survivors of the ship recounts his tale to Melville.
Ron Howard’s direction is vivid and exciting. I’m not quite convinced by Chris “Thor” Hemsworth as Owen Chase. Is it his diction or just his difficulty with mastering the Nantucket accent that makes his garbled speech so hard to understand?
The film is able to sidestep ethical issues about whaling because they didn’t trouble anyone in the 1800s. It can’t avoid the topic of cannibalism, though, although it doesn’t go into the religious justifications for the deed that were referenced in Alive.
The visuals are striking. Often the film looks peculiarly coloured and dream-like. That’s not because the CGI is poor – in fact, it’s incredibly convincing. It’s because some of the scenes are lit in a way that just doesn’t feel “real”. But – given the flashback mechanism – you could argue that this is what vivid memories look like, given their intensity.
It’s a satisfyingly well-told story that never flags.
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