In the Heart of the Sea is a turbulent retelling of the real life events behind Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick.
It’s a film about storytelling, as the adventure unfolds through the narrative of Thomas Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), who recounts his experience as a 14-year-old cabin boy on board the Nantucket whaleship Essex. Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) arrives at Nickerson’s home at the invitation of his wife, who pleads with her husband to unburden himself of the tragic events of that voyage. Reluctant at first, Nickerson is persuaded by his wife that to share his story, to confess to Melville what he witnessed and endured, will liberate him from the weighty chains of guilt that he has silently carried all his life. Melville, keen to prove himself as a serious author, has pen and notebook at the ready as Nickerson begins: ‘The tragedy of the Essex is the story of men. And a Demon.’
Blurred ethics
That story of men begins in 1819, in the bustling whale shipping centre of Nantucket. Whale oil is providing the energy to light the streets of the world’s capital cities and is fuelling the industrial revolution. There’s a lot of money to be made for ship owners, insurers and successful crews, and it soon becomes clear that the lucrative whale oil business makes for blurred ethics and questionable moral decisions. We meet Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth) in discussion with the owners of the whaleship Essex, anticipating the reward of a promised captaincy. The owners inform him that their promise will be postponed, as he is made First Mate while the captaincy has been assumed by George Pollard (Benjamin Walker), a man of higher ranking, born into a seafaring family. A dangerous animosity is quick to blossom between the two, uniting only in their desire to bring 2000 barrels of whale oil back to the Nantucket shores within two years.
Empty barrels
Their hostility provides the drama for the first few months of sailing, with disagreements about how to weather out storms and the increasingly problematic issue of a lot of empty barrels. They find the seas bare and the whales elusive. Stopping by a port, they hear talk of a ‘demon’ sperm whale – a creature described as a monster, larger than any other whale and bent on the destruction of man. Drawn to the promise of whale-filled waters and a desire to return home quickly and successfully, Captain Pollard and Chase are in agreement to steer the Essex and her crew toward the Pacific equator.
Discovering that the ‘demon’ sperm whale is every bit as destructive as they heard it described, the Essex is soon thrown into jeopardy as the whale strikes the boat, which is set alight, forcing the crew to abandon ship. Losing several men in the process, the crew now occupy two small rowing boats. A lack of whale oil is no longer their biggest problem. Starvation, dehydration, exposure and cannibalism ensue, and the ‘demon’ whale tails them in their efforts to survive. In the wilderness of the open sea, with no sight of land and little hope of rescue, man appears as nothing but a small, insignificant fleck against the vast blue waters. This battle between the forces of nature and human survival is the backdrop for what director Ron Howard describes as the ‘characters confronting the truth about themselves and coming to terms with that’. The demon, which was once the monstrous whale that wrought destruction, is internalised by each crew member and carried into the remainder of their lives.
The dawning of a bright new day
The storytelling began with Nickerson and Melville huddled in a dimly-lit room of dark wood and secrets, and ends with the dawning of a new day, the light seeping into the corners of the confession space. Conflicted by a desire to cast off the burdens of his ordeal on the Essex, while also wanting to conceal the awful details of it, Nickerson’s tale dredges up tragedy, guilt and sorrow to the surface of his inner turmoil. Here, as Melville closes his notebook now filled with Nickerson’s memories, daylight rids the past of its darkness and Nickerson’s conscience finds cleansing. The men of the Essex, even those who perished during the voyage, have had their story told, and the demon that haunted Nickerson flees in the face of a bright new day.
