I had never heard of Donald Crowhurst before seeing James Marsh’s film The Mercy. This is unsurprising since the British Sunday Times‘ Golden Globe Race of which he was a competitor occurred in 1968, not quite fifteen years before my birth. And if his would-be return-date to Teignmouth, England of July 1969 after yachting around the world without stop or assistance was ingrained in my mind for any event — auspicious or infamous — it was the moon landing. So when the synopsis described this amateur sailor as a man who sought to fabricate said journey despite never leaving the Atlantic Ocean due to seven months of disastrous circumstances, I obviously believed him to be a charlatan. As written by Scott Z. Burns, however, the truth proves much more complex.
Crowhurst (Colin Firth) was like many of us: an ambitious working class citizen with a good life who yearned for more. He was an inventor of nautical instruments,...
Crowhurst (Colin Firth) was like many of us: an ambitious working class citizen with a good life who yearned for more. He was an inventor of nautical instruments,...
- 11/28/2018
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Colin Firth embarks on nautical deception in this surprisingly compelling true-life drama…
I knew very little about Donald Crowhurst walking into The Mercy, and preserving that element of surprise might be the way to get the most out of James Marsh’s true-life drama. A casual Google will quickly throw up some of the finer details of Crowhurst’s story – so if Colin Firth’s latest is on your radar and you’re unfamiliar with what transpired then you may want to keep it that way. Of course, we’d dearly like you to stick around for this review, so bear with us while we navigate around a few spoilers of historical record.
We first meet Firth’s Crowhurst as he’s desperately trying to sell his nautical navigation device the Navicator. Punters won’t bite, and there’s a sense that his business is failing. Crowhurst himself is an amateur weekend sailor and,...
I knew very little about Donald Crowhurst walking into The Mercy, and preserving that element of surprise might be the way to get the most out of James Marsh’s true-life drama. A casual Google will quickly throw up some of the finer details of Crowhurst’s story – so if Colin Firth’s latest is on your radar and you’re unfamiliar with what transpired then you may want to keep it that way. Of course, we’d dearly like you to stick around for this review, so bear with us while we navigate around a few spoilers of historical record.
We first meet Firth’s Crowhurst as he’s desperately trying to sell his nautical navigation device the Navicator. Punters won’t bite, and there’s a sense that his business is failing. Crowhurst himself is an amateur weekend sailor and,...
- 2/6/2018
- Den of Geek
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