Parents' Guide to The Mercy

This fact-based drama is too reserved for its subject matter. The Mercy ducks telling details of Crowhurst's life, starting out as a "beautiful dreamer" aspirational drama and then wandering and stalling -- just as the inexperienced seaman apparently did himself (the real story was reportedly considerably darker than what's presented here in such genteel fashion). The Mercy is the kind of film in which people say things such as, "Would not all that accrue to the greater value of the company?" but never swear, not even when key safety features fail and they face likely death (or have to go on the dole when abandoned by their sole breadwinner). The film feels too nice to delve into the character of a man who would make the disastrous bets that the real Crowhurst did. And it's certainly too mild to viscerally depict peril at sea or a possible descent into madness.

On the acting front, Firth is just fine, though he's constrained by the limitations of the filmmaking approach. Weisz is quietly truthful as a wife helplessly watching her husband undertake a fool's errand, betting their entire financial future (and his life) on it. But the film's failure to get its hands dirty leaves us wondering why we should care about Crowhurst's quest. He makes poor decisions and abandons and deceives those he cares about, and the filmmaking doesn't get us deep enough inside him to take the trip. Worse yet, after the misadventure's conclusion, the film voices a rant against the media and the citizens who were duped into rooting for the man -- as if what happened was somehow their fault, rather than his. The Mercy's subject matter is undeniably interesting -- in fact, a smaller, indie version of this story has also been made -- but this seafaring film is, frankly, too dry.