December 14, 2015 -- This film about a white whale that sank an American whaling ship in 1820 is not based on the book “Moby Dick,” but rather it is based on the incident which inspired Herman Melville's classic novel, “Moby Dick.” It is a whale of a tale, high adventure on the high seas and an amazing tale of survival.

In 1820, the whaling ship Essex was sunk by a large white whale, killing most of the crew. The few survivors endured months at sea with little food, water or shelter. This film is based on the book “In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaling ship Essex” by American Nathaniel Philbrick. That book, in turn, is based on the accounts of two Essex crewmen who wrote about it, first mate Owen Chase, and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson.

Melville wrote Moby Dick based on Chase's book. Over 100 years later, Nickerson's long lost account finally surfaced, authenticated by the Nantucket Whaling Museum. This film is a result of these three books, and it tells a story with some similarities to Moby Dick, but there are a number of differences as well.

I've always been fascinated by Moby Dick ever since I read it in the early 1960s (I recently re-read it) and I've watched every movie version of it I could lay my hands on, including some of those made-for-TV versions. To my mind, the best version is still the 1956 film with that great screenplay written by John Huston and Ray Bradbury. Too bad they didn't have digital effects for that film.

This film is told from Nickerson's point of view, with Chase being the other main character. Nickerson is played by Tom Holland (“How I Live Now”) as a young man, and by Brendan Gleeson (“Calvary”) as an old man, tortured by his memories of the Essex disaster. Chase is played by Chris Hemsworth (who plays “Thor” in several Marvel movies).

The movie opens with Nickerson, as an old man, being approached by author Herman Melville (played by Ben Whishaw of “Spectre”). Melville offers Nickerson a large sum of money in return for the true story of the sinking of the Essex, and what followed. Nickerson refuses, but his wife (played by Michelle Fairley of “Philomena”) persuades him to tell the tale, because they need the money, and he needs to unburden his mind of the terrible secrets he has kept for years.

In real life, Nickerson was not approached by Melville, but he was approached by another author, Leon Lewis, who asked him to write an account of the voyage, which he did, but the 1876 Nickerson manuscript sent to Lewis for editing was lost until 1960. It was finally published in 1980.

In the movie, Nickerson recounts a tale in which there are conflicts between the inexperienced captain of the Essex, George Pollard (Benjamin Walker of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and his first mate, Chase. The ship is damaged in a squall, and finds few whales to hunt. The captain and Chase decide to take a big risk and sail far out into the Pacific where large numbers of whales are rumored to be, along with a deadly white whale.

The rest of the story is about the loss of the Essex and the terrible ordeal of the survivors, lost at sea for months, relentlessly pursued by the white whale, who seems determined to seek vengeance on those who have hunted him. There are echoes of Moby Dick in this story, as Chase and Pollard debate the place of man in the world. Pollard believes that Man is the ruler of this world, given dominion over all the animals. Chase has grave doubts about this, given the power of the sea, and the white whale.

Another echo of Moby Dick happens when Pollard orders Chase repeatedly to harpoon the white whale after the sinking of the Essex. Chase refuses (he had harpooned the whale earlier, from the deck of the Essex, which resulted in the sinking of the Essex). In refusing to harpoon the whale, Chase seems to acknowledge of the superiority of this beast over the men trying to hunt him. His attitude seems to be “I won't hunt you if you'll stop hunting me.” Indeed, the whale stops pursuing the survivors after this tacit truce. This is the opposite of Ahab in Moby Dick, who pursues the white whale to his own destruction. The wisdom of Chase, and Ahab's folly, are two sides of the same coin.

The tale of the survival of the crew is amazing, and tragic. This is followed by an official inquiry into the incident by maritime authorities, which provides another twist to this story. Inter titles at the end of the film tell what happened to the main characters later.

The acting in the film is solid, as is the cinematography. The scenes of the whalers fighting the white whale are spectacular, the best I've seen in this kind of movie. While the story isn't as good as Moby Dick, it is a solid, interesting story, well told by director Ron Howard of “Rush.” This film rates a B.

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