Intentionally or not, Ron Howard’s new film In the Heart of the Sea is very politically incorrect. Sober and ambitious 19th century Protestant males, under a large American flag, for unapologetically capitalist purposes, courageously launch into distant and dangerous seas to harpoon whales whose oil will light the homes and streets of the civilized world.
Many reviewers are aghast, some claiming the film is just not serious enough for sophisticates. But one Seattle reviewer was more candid. “No one in the year 2015 wants to see a movie about sentient mammals being slaughtered for their oil,” which is an “eco-horror,” he tut tuts. “Nineteenth-century whaling is resource management at its worst, its rapaciousness [in the film] deservedly near collapse.”
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