Stream It or Skip It: ‘In the Heart of the Sea’ on Netflix, A Seafaring, Whale-Fighting Adventure

Whale oil was a major commodity in the mid-nineteenth century, with demand inspiring sailors to risk life and limb on whaling ships. One particular real-life whaling-ship disaster inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick as well as, many years later, the non-fiction chronicle In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, which in turn inspired a 2015 Ron Howard movie that has docked on Netflix. But is a not-quite-Moby-Dick story worth two hours you could be spending with either book?

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Even in 2025, with plenty of scientific research at our disposal, whales are mysterious and, in their majestic size, terrifying creatures; just imagine how monstrous they must have seemed two centuries ago. Though In the Heart of the Sea is framed in 1850, with Herman Melville (Ben Whishaw) visiting the last survivor (Brendan Gleeson) of a whaling-ship disaster, the bulk of the story takes place on the ocean in 1820, detailing the ordeal when a quest for valuable whale oil gets terribly awry. The story’s lead is not the captain, but strapping and more decisive first mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth), who must make even more difficult decision when, 14 months into a lengthy mission that has take his crew far from their Nantucket homes, a whale attack destroys their ship. The sailors continue to fight for survival, starving in tiny sailboats in an ocean that feels more like a lifeless desert. To make matters worse, it seems like that scarred-up whale may be following them.

What Will It Remind You Of?: Besides various incarnations of Moby-Dick, there are hints of the more genteel Cast Away and the similarly harrowing The Perfect Storm or (gulp) Alive. Not a romp, in other words, though it still works as entertainment.

Performance Worth Watching: This is one of those casts that became starrier in retrospect; the ensemble includes future Best Actor Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy and kid who would be Spider-Man Tom Holland. But it’s really a vehicle for Hemsworth, making his second Howard movie in a row after racecar drama Rush. It’s a muscular, borderline cornball performance, and many may prefer Hemsworth when he’s allowed to be a bit funnier, weirder, or more self-deprecating. But it’s undeniably interesting to see Howard treat him as a more old-fashioned sort of movie star.

Sex and Skin: Nope. If there was any funny business going on in the inhospitable environment of a whaling ship, this movie ignores it.

Memorable Dialogue: “So it’s true?” Melville asks his storyteller at one point. “Yes,” he responds. “Too much is true.”

Our Take: Though he started off making comedies and dramedies, Ron Howard has developed a reputation, not undeserved, as a journeyman purveyor of relatively square, straight-ahead studio fare. On paper, that’s just what In the Heart of the Sea is; it contains no truly surprising characters and has no great insight into human behavior. But it’s also a reminder that Howard can really cook as a stylist when he chooses to; this movie in particular could almost be mistaken for a Danny Boyle picture, with frequent Boyle collaborators like Cillian Murphy and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle on hand. Mantle (who also served as DP on the previous Howard/Hemsworth film Rush) is really the key element here. To recreate 1820s Nantucket and ocean life, Howard relies on a lot of computer effects to extend his sets and backgrounds, like a digital version of old-fashioned matte paintings, making the movie’s reality look both immersive and heightened. Of course, the whales, too, require the use of extensive visual effects. Mantle, with his heavy use of blues and greens, willingness to throw in distorted close-ups and unusual angles, and generally impressionistic style, bridges the gap between an old-fashioned epic Howard might have made a decade earlier, and a newer-fangled digital creation that someone like Boyle might have cooked up. The final film isn’t as arresting or thought-provoking as, say, 28 Days Later, nor as rousing as the best Howard films; here Howard sometimes seems hesitant to defy convention, resulting in a harrowing survival drama that sometimes appears to truncate both its emotional moments and its visual invention in turn, trailing off in its final 15-20 minutes. But it nonteheless makes for a memorable hybrid.

Our Call: In the Heart of the Sea is more of a curiosity than a lost classic, but on those terms, it’s worth a two-hour couch voyage to STREAM IT.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Stream In the Heart of the Sea on Netflix