In the Heart of the Sea
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Proud, sturdy men head off to sea, promising their women they will return, only to be humbled by nature as they fight for their lives.
It wasn’t such well worn territory in 1851, when Herman Melville kept readers rapt with the tale of Moby Dick. In the Heart of the Sea gives us the actual ordeal behind Melville’s inspiration, but can never muster anything more worthwhile than some randomly impressive 3D visuals.
Director Ron Howard does himself no favors by setting his film as a storytelling flashback. A young Melville (Ben Whishaw) has ambitions of writing a book on the whale ship Essex and its legendary encounter with a massive white whale, but fears that “If I write it, it will not be as good.”
He seeks out the ship’s last living survivor, and after much cajoling and a wad of cash, Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleason) begins his tale, and we climb aboard the Essex with him as a young boy excited to join a whaling crew for the first time.
His captain (Benjamin Walker) and first mate (Chris Hemsworth) are at odds with each other, almost as much as they are with that tricky Boston accent, making lines such as “sailing to the edge of sanity” sound even more awkward.
The integrity in point of view also becomes troubling. Our window to events is young Tom, yet we regularly witness pivotal exchanges where he is nowhere close, erasing the chance he could be recalling them to Melville.
Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt adapt the best-selling book by shifting intermittently between Nickerson describing the events, and flashbacks bearing them out, giving neither approach the chance to build sufficient dramatic heft.
Quint’s first hand account of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in Jaws was entirely gripping without any dramatic flourish, and though that speech was only a few minutes, it’s hard not to remember it each time In the Heart of the Sea thinks the story needs a breather.
Howard is more successful at delivering smaller details about both the ship above and the whales below, as well as a few sequences worthy of an IMAX 3D spectacle. The search for an emotional anchor to this fabled story, though, remains fruitless, and Melville’s early fears finally come to fruition.
Macbeth
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
From its opening image of a deceased toddler, his grieving parents – Macbeth and his Lady – witnessing the funeral pyre, Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth announces itself as a departure. The somber tone, the ominous atmosphere, and the adjustments to Shakespeare’s text already on display prepare you for the filmmaker’s ambitious and mostly successful new vision of the Man Who Would be King.
Drawing two of cinema’s most compelling talents to the challenging lead roles was Kurtzel’s other great achievement. The always excellent Michael Fassbender is at once valiant and fragile, ruthless and pitiful. As Lady Macbeth, Marion Cotillard – thanks in part to the opening sequence, only hinted at in the original text – mines personal grief as a source of her own wrong thinking, giving her character a soulful depth to match her ferocious nature.
Many of Kurtzel’s ideas translate into inspired images, thanks in large part to Adam Arkapaw’s lens. The cinematographer, who worked with Kurtzel on his blistering film debut The Snowtown Murders, here articulates a vision of medieval madness and horror appropriate for the Bard’s tale of bloodlust, ambition, and mania.
Skies awash in red, battlefields smothered in smoke and teeming with carnage, the flame of a candle or a blaze, all feed into the haunting, dreamlike quality Kurtzel emphasizes with a mournful score. The screen becomes a misty nightmare, punctuated by impressive action pieces that the stage would not allow.
Sometimes distracting changes to the text can take you out of that dream, though, as the play’s most iconic lines and scenes are occasionally altered or omitted. The cinematic update also offers a hushed quality, particularly to lines that are now delivered mostly as soliloquies or in voiceover. This muted approach sometimes serves to emphasize the bursts of violence and lunacy, but just as often gives the performances and the madness itself too distant a quality.
Powerhouse lead performances and arresting visuals aside, the streamlined narrative can make it difficult to invest in lesser characters. It also feels as if the film capitalizes on the popularity of medieval action when it could have mined the political intrigue for some modern relevance.
Regardless, Kurtzel’s execution suits the supernatural horror of the material, showcasing two of cinema’s greatest talents as it does.
