The Mercy (2017)

Directed by: James Marsh | 102 minutes | adventure, biography, drama | Actors: Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis, Colin Firth, Andrew Buchan, Mark Gatiss, Kerry Godliman, Jonathan Bailey, Anna Madeley, Simon McBurney, Finn Elliot, Ken Stott, Genevieve Gaunt

Genres create expectations. A thriller offers suspense, a horror film guarantees gore. And a film about a lonely sea sailor? We don’t have to think long about that either. It offers storms, broken sails, faltering communication, circling sharks, hunger, thirst and loneliness. With always that heroic sailor, suffering but full of confidence, gazing over a clear blue eternity.

You can dump all these expectations into the nearest ocean when it comes to the true sailing drama ‘The Mercy’. In this we meet Donald Crowhurst, entrepreneur and enthusiastic hobby sailor. Donald’s interest is piqued when the Sunday Times offers a large sum of money to the sailor who will be the first to sail around the world without a stopover. The year is 1968 and there is still room for dreamers. Even for a dreamer like Donald Crowhurst, who has no idea what he’s getting himself into.

In ‘The Mercy’ we follow Donald’s preparations for the trip and the trip itself. We soon notice that the boat may be seaworthy, but Donald certainly isn’t. ‘The Mercy’ has nothing to do with heroism. The film outlines what happens when a man, due to a sum of social expectations, financial demands, promises made and a mega-midlife crisis, starts doing something he doesn’t feel like and is not suitable for. A fiasco seems inevitable, even without the usual hunger, thirst and sharks.

This subtle psychological drama comes to us in calm images, in which we constantly switch from ocean to home front. We see Donald’s mounting despair, the compulsive optimism of those left behind, and the mixed media response. Plus, we’re lucky to have a few acting guns aboard and ashore with Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, and David Thewliss.

‘The Mercy’ shows what happens when a person undertakes something far beyond his capabilities. At the same time, it says something about the typically British way in which emotions such as fear and despair are suppressed, and in which an amateur sailor with a stiff upper lip sails towards his doom. The result is a gripping film that offers no spectacular action, but a look at a man who is more afraid of losing face than of a suicidal sailing trip.