Essex.”
IN THE WINTER of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville’s classic “Moby Dick.”
Directed by Ron Howard, “In the Heart of the Sea” reveals the encounter’s harrowing aftermath, as the ship’s surviving crew members were pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive. Braving storms, starvation, panic and despair, the men will call into question their deepest beliefs, from the value of their lives to the morality of their trade.
The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy and Ben Whishaw as novelist Herman Melville, whose inquiries into the event three decades later helped bring the story to light.
The extraordinary journey of the Essex and her crew was chronicled by Nathaniel Philbrick in his book, “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex.” The author and historian had a long-held fascination with the industry that had put a small Massachusetts island on the map.
“The book grew out of my curiosity about how it was back in the day when Nantucket was the capital of American whaling,” Philbrick said. “This was a story that got under my skin.”
“In the Heart of the Sea” tells one of the greatest seafaring tales of all time: the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was attacked by a leviathan—a white whale of singular size and intent—leaving only a few of its crew to overcome near-impossible odds and live to recount their experience.
But in the almost 200 years since that harrowing voyage, the truth faded into history, eclipsed by the celebrated novel it inspired, Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.”
For the film’s director, Howard, the true story of the Essex was something fantastic.
“It’s visceral; it’s rich and cinematic at its core, with lots of twists and turns along the way,” Howard said. “And though the film is set in the past, it touches on ideas about relationships, survival, humanity and nature that are relatable and thought-provoking, and connect to our own sensibilities about who we are as people.”
“In the Heart of the Sea” opens Dec. 3.