'The North Water': Andrew Haigh's Brutal Whaling Drama With Colin Farrell & Jack O’Connell Is Relentless, Yet Captivating [Review]

Relentless and brutal, Andrew Haigh’s “The North Water” is the story of two men who are practically of different species and how they bounce off each other in the middle of nowhere. Reportedly filmed further north than any other production in history, Haigh’s 5-part adaptation of the highly acclaimed novel by Ian McGuire premieres on July 15 on AMC+ and will likely migrate to the cable channel AMC eventually, just as “Gangs of London” did in 2021 after its 2020 AMC+ launch. “The North Water” is an unsparing, violent experience, one that’s so covered in ice that it could be used to cool off this summer. At times, the series’ intense realism can be almost overwhelming, but it is certainly never boring, and it’s further indication that the director of the great “45 Years” and “Lean on Pete” is a craftsman of the highest order.

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At its core, “The North Water” is the tale of a man of science who meets a man of instinct. It centers on a doctor who may be dealing with trauma but who still values intellect, and a man who is utterly indifferent to ethical or intellectual considerations. The latter is a harpooner named Henry Drax (Colin Farrell), who one could politely say lives only in the moment. The concepts of regret or guilt are antithetical to the way he lives his life. As he says at one point, why is one encounter more important than another? Why is one choice more valuable than the former or the next? And yet Farrell and Haigh never succumb to portraying Drax as some sort of amoral genius. He is merely an opportunist, and no opportunity is out of the question.

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Drax makes his way aboard a whaling ship captained by a man named Brownlee (Stephen Graham), who has aligned with the company’s owner, a fellow named Baxter (Tom Courtenay), in what is basically a doomed scheme. An expedition designed to fail in a way that profits the ship’s owner and captain sets off into the frozen tundra with a doctor aboard named Patrick Sumner (Jack O’Connell), clearly unlike so many of his tougher shipmates. He’s not a wallflower, but he’s also not quite ready for a whaling excursion into the harshest territory on the planet. The premiere sets the stage for a violent series, culminating in a seal-hunting sequence that will not be for ardent animal lovers and proves that Sumner is a bit out of his depth.


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The plot really builds in the second episode, in which Sumner examines a cabin boy who a member of the crew has abused. While Drax has been largely a hulking figure in the shadows to this point, he emerges from them here as the depths of his sociopathology becomes clearer. What can a healing man like Sumner do when a monstrous person aboard his ship may be deadlier than conditions of Mother Nature that seem designed to kill mortal men? As Sumner faces his own demons, including a dark event from his past wherein he questions a decision he made, he realizes that he is about to face a physically and morally challenging chapter of his life that will confront him in ways he could never imagine.

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Over almost exactly five hours—each episode runs close to 60 minutes—Haigh slowly builds tension in the ice and snow. His direction and visual language are incredibly subtle in the manner in which they cast a spell. Of course, he works in low light, but he also employs minimal cuts, adding to the sense of claustrophobia by putting viewers in the room with desperate men. Look at how he frames shots on the ship compared to on the ice—tight in the former and distant in the latter. Even though these men are heading into frostbite territory, the scenes on the ship have a sweaty pressure to them, making them feel just as threatening as the shots that reveal how insignificant this story is against the larger backdrop of the north. And many of the scenes on the ship have a gentle rocking to the camerawork that’s barely perceptible but effective. It’s as if no one can get their bearings, not even the viewer.

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When it comes to performance, Farrell completely understood the assignment here, never falling victim to chewing scenery, and sometimes seeming almost unrecognizable in this vile character. (His remarkable range has always been underrated.) Not only are there no lines that this brute would not cross, Drax doesn’t even see them. They don’t exist in his world. He basically considers all morality to be arbitrary, as captured in one of many great lines in Haigh’s scripts: “The law is just a name they give to what certain men prefer.” On the other side, O’Connell takes what could have been a straight man to Farrell’s villain and makes him more complex. Haigh is a fantastic director of performers, and he draws great work throughout the cast of “The North Water,” including not just the two leads but Graham, Courtenay, Peter Mullan, Sam Spruell, and more.

Most essential to the success of “The North Water” is how much Haigh leaves open to interpretation. This is not the simple tale of good vs. evil that it could have been in the hands of a less ambitious filmmaker. It’s one that places two very different men in a confined space and then watches what happens, but what’s refreshing is how much Haigh allows the story’s themes to emerge organically, never underlining or highlighting them for easy digestion. There are issues of religion, class, discrimination, power, masculinity, and more weaving their way through this tale, but Haigh avoids making his characters into mouthpieces or his themes into obvious talking points. He never talks down to his audience, hoping they will take this violent journey and allowing viewers to consider its characters and their actions without holding their hands.

There are times this approach will be too unsatisfying for some viewers, and as the bleakness of “The North Water” gets more exhausting, some will question if so much historical veracity destroyed the entertainment value. It’s not what could remotely be called escapism, but there’s plenty of that on television. Instead, this an ambitious piece of fiction, a story not so much of redemption but of sheer survival. The former may be what people often seek, but the latter is what they are so often reduced to finding. [B+]